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VOLUME I. 



Volume II., which will be published as soon as 
possible, will contain the rest of the Papers read at 
the meetings, with a Bibliography of Domesday 
Book, Accounts of the MSS. and Printed Book 
exhibited at the Public Record Office and at the 
British Museum, and an Index to the whole work* 

The subscription price of the whole work is 
j£i. I ox. Volume I. is sold separately at iSs, 



■7 C- 



1086 A.D.— 1886 A.D. 



DOMESDAY STUDIES 

BEING THE PAPERS READ AT THE MEETINGS OF 
THE DOMESDAY COMMEMORATION 1886 

WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DOMESDAY BOOK AND ACCOUNTS 

OF THE MSS AND PRINTED BOOKS EXHIBITED AT 

THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE AND AT 

THE BRITISH MUSEUM 



J. EDITED BY 

P. EDWARD DOVE 

or Lincoln's inn, baksistss-at-law 

HONOKASV SBCXSTAJtY OF TUX DOMBSDAY COMMEMORATION COMMXTTBB 



VOLUME I. 



LONDON 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ^ 

AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST i6ti» STREET 
1888 " ^ ' 



Ui 



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All rights rtstrvtd 




PKINTKO 8V 

trOTTISWOODE AND CO,, NEW-STSBBT SQUARB 

LOMOON 



• •••«•• •• 

••• • • ••• • ! • 



DEDICATION 



TO 

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN 

THIS BOOK 

WRITTEN IN COMMEMORATION OP ONE OF THE GREATEST WORKS 

OF ONE OF THE GREATEST STATESMEN THAT EVER RULED ENGLAND 

HER majesty's ILLUSTRIOUS ANCESTOR AND PREDECESSOR 

IS 
BY HER majesty's GRACIOUS PERMISSION 

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

By HYDE CLARKE, V.P.R.Hist.S. 

The occurrence of the Eight Hundredth Anniversary of the 
Completion of Domesday Survey of 1086 was the subject of 
discussion in the press, and it having been brought before the 
Council of the Royal Historical Society, it was considered 
desirable to take measures for its commemoration. 

In effecting this it was hoped that some benefit might 
accrue to the encours^ement of historical studies, without un- 
duly promoting popular manifestations. At the same time, if 
the national history is to become a vital subject with us, then 
it is necessary that those incidents which affect the population 
or localities should on suitable occasions receive notice. 

There can be no doubt that the announcement of the pro- 
posed celebration did in numerous cases recall attention to 
the nature of the Domesday record, and to its wide relation 
to so many thousands of townships and villages throughout 
the length and breadth of the land. This was one purpose of 
the Council, because the members considered the documents 
in question were of singular interest, constituting a most re- 
markable national monument, and relating to an epoch for 
the description of which the materials are in other respects 
scanty and obscure. 

Great as have been the labours on this epoch and its 
records, and particularly of late years under the leadership of 



viii PREFACE 

Professor Freeman, one chief result which has accrued from 
them is to show how much is still wanted, and more particu- 
larly the demand for individual and local co-operation, to 
accomplish the task of elucidation. In that survey we have 
before us a mass of details relating in many cases to institu- 
tions which have ceased to be operative among us, and from 
the proper explanation of which many historical facts have 
yet to be evolved. To stimulate such researches and exer- 
tions was the desire of the Council, and they believe they 
have been usefully employed in bringing forth the resources 
of the English school. 

From the very condition of our school of history, which is 
that of so many of our departments of learning, dependent 
on individual effort, exertion and co-operation, and to a very 
limited degree on the organised action of the Government 
and the community, we are subjected to comparisons which 
appear unfavourable with countries where there are great in- 
stitutions, an ficole des Chartes, numerous professorships, and 
large establishments paid from the public funds. The 
Domesday manifestation has shown that there is a con- 
siderable body of men among us giving their time and atten- 
tion to this branch of investigation, and these have been 
strengthened in the conviction that their fellow-countrymen 
appreciate their labour. 

With regard to the course of proceedings to be instituted, 
the Council wished to leave that in the hands of their fellow- 
workers. They invited the co-operation of all those interested, 
as well societies as individuals, in the formation of a con- 
ference. They esteemed it their duty to lay the matter among 
the first before Professor Freeman. Although the occupations 
of some persons prevented their active adhesion, the Council 



PREFACE ix 

received such encouragement as enabled them to persevere 
and apply for public support 

From the time of the constitution of the General Com- 
mittee the direction of all measures passed into their hands. 
Conscious that they disposed of small means and were en- 
gaged in an enterprise of doubtful issue, the Committee were 
desirous rather to restrict than to enlarge its bounds, and to 
court technical contributions rather than those belonging to 
the domains of general history. They were aware that their 
participation was only temporary, and that the great work, 
if they succeeded in awakening attention, must come after 
them in the future, and would not really be set aside by their 
limited action. 

The history of that great migration and intermixture of 
races, of which Domesday was one consequence, is not a 
labour to be achieved at once. Many attempts have been 
made to appreciate the changes which at first took place, 
and which are still in operation, but we are as yet too little 
familiar with the particulars of such ethnological events in 
various countries to arrive at determinate conclusions. The 
science of ethnology is still new and unsettled, and as its 
serious study expands so are multifarious conditions brought 
under notice, which still stimulate closer and more laborious 
examination of incidents here. The intermarriage of races is 
no longer accepted as implying a necessary perpetuation of 
their offspring, or the equal participation of these in the 
characteristics of the parent tribes. We are prepared for the 
disappearance or extinction of one element, while we know 
that the laws which govern the distribution of physical and 
mental characteristics are also obscure. 

It is indeed of deep interest to study the effect of the in- 



X PREFACE 

troduction in these islands of the Norman element, compli- 
cated by contact with various mixed populations. Discussions 
on these subjects during a limited session could, however, 
have led to no definite conclusions, while they might have 
wandered into vague speculations. 

Similar circumstances were held to discourage the invita- 
tion of papers on questions of genealogy, family or personal 
history. In the case of Domesday these topics are germane, 
and are necessarily suggested, because its particulars refer to 
the names of ancestors of those who have figured in our annals, 
as of those now living in such numbers among our existing 
population. 

The narrow course adopted by the Council was no protest 
against other branches of study, nor the expression of any 
undue preference. It was found that among the active co- 
operators there were many who had devoted themselves to 
the study of Domesday as a record, and to its elucidation. 
It was seen there were enough of these to supply the material 
for two volumes of essays, which it was hoped would form a 
contribution acceptable to the student and even to the public, 
taking its due place in the illustration of the subject to 
which it is devoted. 

Such was the design of these volumes, but it does not 
constitute the whole matter of the commemoration, and only 
expresses some portion of the co-operation which was elicited 
by the occasion. There was scarcely a local society in 
England, engaged in archaeological pursuits, which did not 
send delegates to the conference, and it is known that one 
result will be further effort in the illustration of the relation 
of the record in reference to the local and personal circum- 
stances of several counties. A disposition has even been 



PREFACE xi 

shown to make the portion of the record referring to a locality 
a school lesson, just as it is now proposed to make the local 
map a beginning for geographical teaching. A short general 
manual of history impresses itself but little on the minds of 
children. They may be more awakened by what they can 
understand, the events, and incidents, and battles in their 
neighbourhood, which are narrated in the larger chronicles, 
and which can be explained by competent illustration, by 
maps and by excursions. 

Interest was also manifested in the congress throughout 
the English-speaking people. The Historical Societies of 
the United States and Canada concurred in naming delegates, 
and their chief and competent representative was the Minister 
of the United States, the Hon. Edmund G. Phelps, who took 
an active part in the councils of the conference and in its pro- 
ceedings. A like concurrence was shown by the Historical 
Societies of Australia and the Colonies. 

The growing attention to our older history and genealogy 
observable among those of our people who are engaged in the 
establishment of new commonwealths throughout the world 
is one of the best guarantees for the vitality of the English 
school of students and for its effective development. 

Although the direct interest of our Scandinavian friends 
was limited, the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries 
adopted the measure of sending a delegate, whose presence 
was a welcome announcement of the participation of that 
eminent body. Reports of the proceedings also appeared in 
the Scandinavian journals. 

The regret felt at the inaction of the Norman Societies 
after their invitation would have been unalloyed, if it had not 
been for the co-operation of their most distinguished repre- 



xii PREFACE 

sentative, M. Leopold Delisle, of the Institute, Director- 
General o( the National Library in Paris. He, stimulated by 
the memory of his former labours on Domesday, did what he 
could to provide for the share of France. Aided by the Sociit^ 
pour THistoire de France, he contributed a paper on a new 
Norman charter to their proceedings, and gave it as a freewill 
offering on the part of France to us. He also sent copies of the 
paper for the service of his numerous colleagues on our com* 
mittee. M. Waddington, the Ambassador of France, was 
pleased to take an active part in promoting co-operation from 
that country. 

Encouragement was thus lai^ely given for proceeding with 
the undertaking, and in this course, through the intervention 
of their President, Lord Aberdare, the Committee received the 
support of the two great national establishments. The chiefs 
of the British Museum entered most cordially on the task, 
and provided fully for the public requirements. From their 
collections they brought forth every document which was 
illustrative, and the General Committee were able to obtain 
by the liberality of various authorities, and particularly of 
the Deans and Chapters, the production of local Domesday 
books and other records. This assemblage of ancient muni- 
ments was laid open for public inspection for many days, and 
was one of the events of the institution in that year. The 
officers of the institution, some of whom were members of the 
Committee, spared no pains in their arrangements, and on the 
day of opening caused an address to be read, and afforded 
copious information. 

The application of Lord Aberdare to Lord Esher, the 
Master of the Rolls, was received with cordiality and re- 
sponded to by the application of the resources of the Record 



PREFACE xiii 

Office, and by the zeal and energy of the Deputy Keeper 
and the officials. Thus a memorable spectacle was afforded, 
such as has seldom been equalled or surpassed, of bringing 
together in the Record Office and the British Museum the 
scattered contemporary archives of a far-distant age. Many 
were reminded that all history is not in the pages of books, 
nor are writers its only witnesses and exponents. The evi- 
dences of the past were brought before the eyes of our 
generation, and the Domesday volumes in their chest were 
produced by the successors of their original custodians. The 
Record Office is not designed for popular exhibitions, and its 
staff could on this occasion do less than they desired to meet 
the public wishes, but they made an effectual effort. One useful 
result was obtained, and that was to make more widely known 
than to the circle of specialists how the Record establishment 
had been administered under conditions far from favourable, 
and little savouring of liberality to it, and how by the care of 
those who have governed it in this country an institution has 
grown up honourable to the country, and able to be placed 
alongside those of continental nations. 

It is not easy as yet properly t6 estimate the co-operation 
of the Record Department, but it is to be hoped the hands of 
its officials will be strengthened in unobtrusive labours by 
the conviction that those labours are recognised in their 
value and their usefulness. In the Rolls House the meetings 
of the Committees were allowed to be held, with the presence 
of officers of the staff, and sometimes under the chairmanship 
of the Deputy Keeper. These meetings have helped to con- 
solidate the corps of Domesday workers, and it may be 
possible occasionally to resume the meetings of the con- 
ference so as to consult on operations in future years. 



xiv PREFACE 

Trivial as such opportunities for intercourse may some- 
times appear, yet they occasionally strengthen the convictions 
of thinking men, and g^ve activity to their resolutions. A 
proposition had previously been made by Mr. William de 
Gray Birch for a Domesday Society, and this has received 
more adherents. There was, however, one conviction which 
on such an occasion could not fail to come under active con- 
sideration, when directly suggested by the purpose of the 
gathering, and that is, the great want of a careful study of our 
legal muniments and their bearing on a subject hitherto 
obscure, the history of English law. When we consider that 
of the laws which govern the population of the globe the 
English system exercises so wide an influence as compared 
with the Chinese, the Roman, the Mussulman, or the Hindu, 
then the importance of its thorough study is seen. A grow- 
ing zeal on this head is now manifested at home and in the 
United States, and it appeared to our Honorary Secretary, 
Mr. P. Edward Dove, that the time had come for a further 
effort Supported by the approval of members of the con- 
ference, he has been enabled to carry his design to comple- 
tion. The Selden Society has been founded, under the 
patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, with the concurrence 
of authority in England and in the United States, and is to 
be carried out as a common institution. The first volume of 
the Selden Society will shortly follow this now in our hands. 

A further effect of the influence of the commemoration is 
proposed by a society here for publishing the French chartu- 
laries, for naturally the history of the tenants in capite is largely 
to be found in the records of their native countries and of the 
monasteries they founded there. Thus what Dugdale has 
given us in his ' Monasticon ' may be duly supplemented. 



PREFACE XV 

. M. Delisle has also laid before the French Government a 
proposal for a Norman Commemoration, on the basis of ours, 
upon the other side of the channel. 

The papers which were prepared for the conference were, 
by the liberal co-operation of the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, 
read in their hall. Although read at a time when so many 
were still absent from town, the papers were fully and ade- 
quately discussed, and the proceedings were recorded in the 
daily and other papers in a sufficient extent to bring their 
matter well before the public. The journals in most parts of 
this country and in many districts abroad also gave attention 
to the subject. 

Referring to the Commemoration in his last Annual 
Address, the President of the Society of Antiquaries said : 
* I must, however, now turn to the events of the past year in 
which this society has been principally interested. I may 
first mention the Domesday celebration, in the organisation 
of which we were represented by our Fellows, Mr. C. Trice 
Martin and Mr. Stuart Moore. The idea of such a celebration 
of the eight-hundredth anniversary of the completion of this 
unique Survey originated with the Royal Historical Society, 
and the success of the undertaking is in great part due to the 
energy and perseverance of its honorary secretary, Mr. P. E. 
Dove. That it was a success all who took part in the week's 
proceedings will readily acknowledge. The exhibition of 
original documents both at the Record Office and at the 
British Museum was bf the highest value and interest, and 
this society was able to contribute a not unimportant quota in 
the Winton Domesday and the Liber Niger of Peterborough, 
of which the Museum authorities kindly took the charge. 
The papers read on the occasion were numerous and valu- 

VOL. I. a 



xvi PREFACE 

able, and it is to be hoped that when they are published in a 
connected form they will add a further impetus to the detailed 
study of the Norman period which the Domesday celebration 
so well and happily inaugurated.* 

Thanks are due to many who have co-operated in the 
conduct of the Domesday conference. Indeed, the appeal 
made by the promoters of this undertaking has been in 
general most cordially received, and they believe that had 
they made a more extended appeal it would have met with 
as ready response. On one point alone have they not suc- 
ceeded as yet, which may be owing to the delay in the 
publication, and that is, in providing a sufficient number of 
subscribers for these volumes. They therefore strongly 
recommend this matter to the hearty consideration of those 
who read these volumes. 



CONTENTS 

OF 

VOLUME I. 



PAGE 

ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK. Bv Stuart Moore, 

F.S.A I 

ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY, AND ITS RE- 
LATION TO DOMESDAY BOOK. A Study in Comparative 
History. By Hyde Clarke, V.P.R.Hist.S 37 

DOMESDAY SURVIVALS. By Canon Isaac Taylor, M.A., LL.D., 

Litt.D 47 

WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS. By Canon Isaac Taylor, 

M.A., LL.D., LittD 67 

DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY. By 
. J. Horace Round, M.A 77 

THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH. By Canon Isaac 

Taylor, M.A., LL.D., LittD 143 

NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND. By J. Horace 
Round, M.A. . . . , 18 

A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF ASSESSMENT 
OF DOMESDAY, embracing the Divisions op the Libra or 
Pound of Silver and the Weights and Measures of un- 
coined Metal, Flour, Cloth, &c., as made by the Angli, 
Mercians, Danes, Normans, and Celts, and their Connec- 
tion with the true Understanding of the Words 'Hida,* 
'Carucata,* 'Virgata,* 'Villanus,* 'Anglicus Numerus,* &c. 
By O. C. Pell, M.A. 227 



On i^t 
^iub^ of Someeba^ Q^ooS. 

By STUART MOORE, F.S.A., Barrister-at-Law. 

I COME before you oppressed with such a sense of my un- 
fitness to enter upon a dissertation of the Stiidy of Domesday 
that I feel I must crave your utmost indulgence to-night, and 
deprecate any severe criticism on this paper, for these reasons. 
It is now twenty-three years ago since I made any serious study 
of our great Record, and my researches in it since that time 
have been casual and accidental, directed only to particular 
objects which have come before me from time to time. A collec- 
tion of voluminous notes and extracts from the Book itself, 
and from some hundred or more Monastic Chartularies which 
I made when I was engaged in editing the Northamptonshire 
Domesday, were lent by me to the late Mr. Larking, and by 
him, alas, never returned, and I am thrown back upon imperfect 
recollection of past study for material for this paper. 

I had hoped to come here to-night to listen and to learn, 
and not to speak. I thought that my place would have been 
more worthily and more fittingly filled by my friend Mr. Elton, 
from whom we have all long expected a learned dissertation 
upon the important subject before us, but I was informed only 
a few days ago that Mr. Elton could not read any paper, and 
at the earnest entreaty of your most indefatigable Secretary, 

VOL. I. B 



2 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

Mr. Dove, I have consented to do my best to take his place. 
I feel, however, that to attempt any really serious discussion of 
Domesday Book, I require better material than an imperfect 
recollection of past labours and the fragmentary observations 
of succeeding years. Time has not permitted me to suffi- 
ciently refresh my memory or to collect new materials and 
new observations, to enable me to deal with the subject before 
us in the way I had hoped would be done to-night. 

In approaching such a subject, one cannot be too conscious 
of the great labours of previous inquirers, and these are so im- 
perfectly known to me, and so imperfectly understood, that I 
may say with a recent poet, who speaking of the realm of 

song says : 

We are pent 
Who sing to-day by all the garnered wealth 
Of ages of past song. We have no more 
The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn, 
Tread in old thoughts and fair. 

When I review the vast array of works on Domesday, bear- 
ing the names of Ellis, Eyton, Baker, Larking, and other great 
scholars and labourers in this great field of research, I shrink 
from my present task and feel that I shall in almost every, if 
not every part of it, be telling a tale that is told. 

I have thought it best therefore, in this slight essay, not to 
attempt any exhaustive review of the material for national or 
social history which this great Record presents, but to give 
forth the impressions that I have received in studying Domes- 
day, and the conclusions that force themselves on my mind as 
to the motives 6f its conception, the method of its execution, 
the nature of the information it yields, and the means of inter- 
preting its obscurities, in such a way that they may possibly 
serve as some guide and assistance to those who are studying 
particular portions of the Record or particular subjects arising 
from its text. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 3 

At the outset I find myself in accord with one whose 
minute study of the great Record and whose indefatigable 
labour and great attainments will be recognised by all here 
(I mean Mr. Eyton), on the first and most important question 
relating to the study of Domesday, viz. to use Mr. Eyton's 
own words : 

That it long since dawned upon my convictions that Domesday 
is its own best interpreter, and that those who would understand 
Domesday thoroughly must get their knowledge from Domesday 
itself. Lexicographers and glossarists only perplex and mislead the 
Domesday^ student The question for us here is not what a word 
or expression may sometimes have meant etymologically or in its 
various and successive uses, but what that word or expression did 
mean and must have meant in Domesday. 

It must be remembered that we have no official contempo- 
rary record whereby to illustrate the text of the great Survey 
(for the Exon Domesday and the * Inquisitiones Geldi ' I think 
should be read as parts of it), and until we get that long hoped 
for compilation of a Chartularium Anglo-Normannicum which 
I believe has been proposed, and it is hoped will one day be 
produced by the Rolls authorities, we are not likely to get any 
great help in this direction. I do not wish it to be supposed 
for a moment that researches among Monastic Chartularies 
and records of later date dp not materially assist us in under- 
standing the obscurities of the great Record, but the informa- 
tion which they give us with regard to measures of land and 
methods of cultivation &c. must be taken cum granosalis when 
we attempt to illustrate Domesday by the information which 
they present. These records are for the most part of very 
much later date, and we must not too hastily suppose that the 
information they give us, and the facts they set forth, and the 
deductions to be drawn from a collation of them, necessarily 
and accurately apply to the condition of the land and the state 
of its cultivation at the time of Domesday Book. 



4 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

My researches amongst these later records lead me to the 
conclusion that from the thirteenth century downwards there 
was not any existing knowledge of what Domesday Book 
meant, and the few references to it which I have found seem to 
me to show that the writers of them knew the Book only as the 
great Survey, but were almost wholly ignorant of the meaning 
of its language. The very meaning of the name of it was lost 
in actual doubt. The interpretation of the name given by 
Rudbome, a writer of the fifteenth century, is that * it is called 
Domesday because like the great Day of Judgment it spares 
none.* ' The word is similarly explained by the author of the 
* Dialogus de Scaccario,* * who composed his work about the 
end of the reign of King Henry III. According to the com- 
piler of the Red Book of the Exchequer, who wrote in the 
twelfth century, it is called Domus Dei, or the Roll of Win- 
chester, and Stowe in his * Annals ' (p. 1 18) says of it : * The 
Book of Bermondsey saith that this Book was laid up in the 
King's Treasury (which was in the church of Winchester or 
Westminster, in a place called Domus Dei or God's House), and 
so the name of the Book therefore called " Domus Dei," and 
since shortly Domesday.' 

Archdeacon Hale's theory is that its name arose from the 
Law Day or Domesday at which the tenants and Hundred 
men presented their verdicts before the Royal Commissioners. 

Among Monastic Registers the more general title by which 
it is quoted is * Liber qui vocatur Domesdei ' ; and it is worthy 
of remark that wherever the monk transcribing the record has 
done so correctly and appears to have in any way studied his 
subject, he invariably writes Domesdei or Domesday, but when 
the scribe has been manifestly ignorant we generally find 
Domus Dei. It is almost certain that in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries or even earlier the monastic scribes of the 
times with few exceptions knew little or nothing of the nature 

* j4nglia Saera, I 257. * Madox, Ifist, of Excheq, ii. 398. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 5 

of the Record, as they seldom if ever transcribed it accurately ; 
in one instance the scribe has so grossly blundered as to 
introduce an interlinear word in the original into the middle 
of the line, utterly regardless of the sense.* 

The most intelligent ancient observation upon Domesday 
which I have found occurs in the Register of Waltham Abbey, * 
appended to a copy of a portion of the Record relating to the 
possessions of that Abbey, in which the writer says : 

Many advantages may arise from the possession of the copy, because 
it can be seen by it how the manors of this church were held before 
the Conquest and at the Conquest. It can also be seen how many 
hides there are in every manor, and if the king should wish to tallage 
his realm by hides, it can be seen by how many hides our manors are 
taxed, notwithstanding that by charter this church is free from the 
tallage of hidage. It can also be seen what estate the tenants of our 
manors have of right I do not say what state they have at present, 
because by the patience and negligence of lords or their bailiffs, by 
long continuation they have now a freer estate and may have other 
than they should have, to the disherison of the church and the peril 
of the souls of those who in such cases ought to have provided a 
quick remedy. It can also be seen, if any plea of malice long afore- 
thought should in times future be raised by anyone to take away 
(ffuod absit) the possessions of this church, what or what words being 
in the said books or rolls should be called to warranty, and likewise 
what advantage or gain may be brought to this church, and many 
other uses, although they are not here expressed, may arise from the 
possession of such copy ; and be it known that those things which are 
here noted from the Book of Domesday [* Librum del Domesday'] 
are written word for word with titles as is there written. 

And then the monk adds the following caution : 

Nor do I advise that these memoranda should be allowed to 
come into the hands of the unfaithful, lest perchance they might 
scheme something sinister to the prejudice of this church, whereby 
many inconveniences, costs, and trouble might arise. 

' MS, LamdrnvfUy Brit. Mus. 415, f. 31. 
' MS, CoUon, Tiberius, C, ix. f. 196^. 



6 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

The extract which the monk gives is very correctly made, 
and shows that the scribe had studied his subject. 

In the reign of John, Domesday was known to the 
King s Court as the Rotulus Wintoniae.* In the reigns of 
Edward I. and Edward II. it is referred to by the Court of 
Queen's Bench as Domesdei and Domesday, but by the time 
of Edward III. it seems clear that the meaning at any rate of 
part of the great Record was not even understood by the 
Judges.* 

Kelham says, a question arising in 12 Edward III. whether 
the lands of Roger de Huntingfeld were holden of the king 
ut de corona or ut de Baronia vel Honore^ the Treasurer and 
Barons of the Exchequer were directed by the king's writ to 
search Domesday and other records, and to call to their assis- 
tance the Judges and others of the king's council, to make 
their return thereof. They accordingly return to the king in 
his Chancery a certificate by which they set forth several things 
which they found upon the search, and inter alia, verbatim, 
what they found relating thereto in Domesday, but as to the 
words contained in the said Book of Domesday they set forth 
that they are not able to make a declaration or interpretation 
of them unless just as the words sounded. 

We must not look therefore for any but the slightest aid 
from the records of later centuries to enable us to understand 
the difficulties presented by the text of the great Record. I 
am convinced that it is better understood now in this nine- 
teenth century than it has been since the end of the twelfth 
century. From the Book itself, and from the Exon Domesday 
and from the ' Inquisitiones Geldi,' we shall learn more than 
from any other source. 

The first and most important step towards the study of 

' In the entry of Peter de Bras* land made after the completion of the Book, 
it is described as Liber de Wintonia, 

* Kelham, Domesday Book illustrated^ p. 245. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 7 

Domesday will be, I think, the completion of the bibliography 
of Domesday, which I am rejoiced to find is contemplated by 
this Society. It will gather together and give as it were a 
catalogue raisonn^ of the work which has been hitherto done 
towards the understanding of the great Record, and I hope 
that it may be so compiled that it will not give merely a 
kind of bookseller's catalogue of the printed works, but will 
contain some review of the labours of the authors, showing 
what branches of study they have each taken up, with a 
criticism of the theories which they respectively advance. 
Such a work would be of the highest value to future inquirers 
and save many a student from much useless labour. 

Of the motives which induced the Conqueror and his 
council to undertake the Survey we have very little reliable 
information, and much that has been written on the subject 
savours more of a deduction from the result than of a know- 
ledge of the immediate facts. We have the statement from 
the Chartulary of St Mary's, Worcester,' of the appointment of 
the Commissioners by the king himself to make the Survey. 
We have also, the heading of the * Inquisitio Eliensis ' which 
purports to' give, and probably does truly give, the items of 
the articles of inquiry, which it sets forth as follows : 

I. What is the manor called ? 
II. Who held it in the time of King Edward } 

III. Who now holds it.^ 

IV. How many hides ? 

V. What teams are there in demesne ? 
VI. What teams of the men } 
VII. Whatvillans? 
VIII. What cottagers .? 
IX. What bondmen ? 
X. What freemen and what sokemen } 

' MS, Cotton, Tiberius, A, xii. 



8 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

XL What woods ? 
XII. What meadow ? 

XIII. What pastures ? 

XIV. What mills ? 
XV. What fisheries ? 

XVI. What is added or taken away ? 
XVII. What the whole was worth together, and what 
now.? 
XVI 1 1, How much each freeman or sokeman had or has f 

All this to be estimated three times, viz. in the time of 
King Edward, and when King William gave it, and how it 
is now, and if more can be had for it than has been had. 

This document is, I think, the best evidence we have of 
the form of the inquiry, and it tallies strictly with the form 
of the various returns as we now have them. So far as I am 
aware, the only other contemporary record as to the nature of 
the inquiry is the passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 
which the Chronicler states that : 

The king had very deep speech with his council about this land, 
how it was peopled, and by what men ; and then sent his men over 
all England into every shire, and caused to be ascertained how many 
hundred hides were in the shire and what land the king himself had 
and cattle within the land, and what yearly rent he ought to have out 
of each county. Also he caused to be written how much land his 
Archbishops had and his Bishops, his Abbots and his Earls, and 
that I may not relate prolixly, what or how much each man had who 
was a holder of land in England, whether of land or of cattle, and 
how much it was worth. So narrowly he caused it to be traced out 
that there was not one single hide or one yard [or, as Mr. Seebohm 
reads it, yardland or virgate of land], and even— it is shame to tell though 
it seemed to him no shame to do — not an ox nor a cow nor a swine 
was left that was not set down in his writ^ and all the writings were 
brought to him afterwards. 

Now these two statements differ considerably, and the 
growl of the unintelligent, unthrifty Saxon monk about the 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 9 

enumeration of the cattle is scarcely borne out by the Survey 
itself. It IS true that in the fuller returns, as the Exon 
Domesday, and the Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex portion, cattle, 
sheep, goats, pigs, are returned, but they are the cattle &c. 
which formed the stock of the demesne of the manor, and this 
stock was quite distinct from the stock belonging to the tenants. 
Now it must be remembered that at this period and through 
many later centuries, this stock went with the land^ and passed 
from bailiff to bailiff in succession, and was accounted for 
annually and enumerated on the back of every bailiff's account, 
and when in later times the demesnes of manors came to be 
leased, this stock was leased with the lands and the lessee 
had to makie it good at the end of his lease. This practice 
existed as late as the reign of Henry VIII. It will be 
seen therefore that the Commissioners who made the Survey 
could not possibly arrive at the value of the manor unless 
they took account of the stock on the demesnes. Accord- 
ingly* in the fuller returns of the Exon Domesday we find 
the stock so enumerated, but in the abbreviated record the 
stock no longer appears. There was no specific instruc- 
tion, as is insinuated by the Saxon chronicler, that the Com- 
missioners should make return of every man's pigs, but that 
inquiry became necessary as to the stock of the demesnes 
in order that the Commissioners should arrive at the value 
of the manor which he was bound to return. There was no 
inquiry as to stack belonging to the tenants^ and no unnecessary 
inquisition as to their possessions. This grumble of the Saxon 
monk, who like all his tribe keenly resisted all attempts to 
ascertain the wealth of the Church, must no longer be held 
up to the world as an instance of the rapacity and extor- 
tionate greed of the Conqueror. Thus all external evidence 
failing, we are driven back to the Record itself for evidence of 
the Conqueror's intention in framing it, and anyone who 
carefully studies it will be driven to the inevitable conclusion 



lo ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

that it was framed and designed in the spirit of perfect 
equity. 

Long before the Conquest, in the period between the 
death of Alfred and that of Edward the Confessor, the 
kingdom had been rapidly declining into a state of disorga- 
nisation and decay. The defence of the kingdom and the 
administration of justice and keeping of the peace could not 
be maintained by the king's revenues. The tax of Danegeld, 
instituted by Ethelred at first to buy peace of the Danes, and 
afterwards to maintain the defence of the kingdom, had 
more and more come to be levied unequally and unfairly. 
The Church had obtained enormous remissions of its liability, 
and its possessions were constantly increasing. Powerful 
subjects had obtained further remission, and the tax had 
come to be irregularly collected and was burdensome upon 
the smaller holders and their poor tenants, while the nobility 
and the Church escaped with a small share in the burden. 
In short the tax had come to be collected upon an old and 
uncorrected assessment It had probably dwindled in amount, 
and at last had been ultimately remitted by Edward the 
Confessor. Anarchy and confusion appears to have reigned 
throughout the realm. The Conqueror was threatened with 
foreign invasion, and pressed on all sides by complaints of 
unfair taxation on the part of his subjects. Estates had 
been divided and subdivided, and the incidence of the tax was 
unequal and unjust. He had to face the difficulties before him 
and to count the resources of his kingdom for its defence, 
and the means of doing so were not at hand. In this situation 
his masterly and order-loving Norman mind instituted this 
great inquiry, but ordered it to be taken (as I maintain the 
study of the Book will show) in the most public and open 
manner, and with the utmost impartiality, with the view of 
levying the taxes of the kingdom equally and fairly upon all. 
The articles of his inquiry show that he was prepared to 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK ir 

Study the resources of his kingdom and consider the liability 
of his subjects from every possible point of view. He did not 
simply order a return of what his subjects then held in present 
value, without r^ard to whether the estates they held were 
of improving value or decaying value. He wished to ascer- 
tain in each case what was the old taxable assessment, and 
what was the annual value under that assessment. He wished 
to ascertain what was the annual value in each case when the 
grant was made, and what was the value at the time of the 
inquiry ; but having ascertained the modem value, or rather 
gross value, he did not seek to enforce a tax upon that 
assessment, which from adventitious circumstances might press 
unequally and unfairly upon some ; but he directed his Com- 
missioners to make a new assessment^ not upon the then total 
value, but upon the basis of a rateable value which was to be 
measured by what we may call the possibilities of each estate. 
He directed them to inquire and ascertain and estimate what 
extent of cultivable land existed in each estate. The method 
he employed to arrive at this assessment was to direct them 
to return for what number of teams there was arable land in 
each manor, ahd what number of such teams were in existence, 
whether in the hands of the lord or of his tenants. This 
assessment comprehended the pasture land necessary for the 
maintenance of the teams and the houses and homesteads of 
the tenants. From this return he could see what the land 
ought to produce and what it was at the time actually pro- 
ducing ; and further, be it observed that this assessment was 
not made arbitrarily by the Commissioners, but upon the 
evidence of the men of the Hundred and the men of the 
estate. A more perfect method of assessment, a more just 
and reasonable basis of taxation, can hardly be conceived 
when we recollect that the universal method of cultivation 
was cultivation on the system of the common field. The 
Conqueror seems to have considered that by basing his new 



12 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

assessment upon the team he was taxing the producible value 
of each estate fairly and equally, for the team could cultivate 
a given number of acres varying in each locality according 
to the nature of the soil, and he who had the most teams and 
' the land for them to cultivate, had the most revenue. By tax- 
ing the team he also taxed the pasture, exceptmowable pasture, 
and the waste land upon which such teams subsisted, and also 
the house of the tenant. In short he taxed on a fair basis the 
whole estate. Special items of profit, as mills, fisheries, woods, 
&c., were in some cases separately mentioned, but valued in the 
total valuation of the estate. 

In this system of valuation the Conqueror was creating no 
new or arbitrary basis of taxation ; he was only following out 
and correcting the Saxon system, and calling it by a new name. 
That basis of taxation which had been called the hide in 
Saxon times he terms the caruca or team. Under the Saxon 
system the Danegeld had been collected upon the hide. Now 
the hide of early Saxon times seems to have been an un- 
determined portion of land sufficient for the maintenance of a 
family, and Beda writes 'familia' where his Saxon inter 
preter writes * hydelandes.' Kemble suggests that its root is 
to be found in the root of * hygan,' * hyvt^xiy* familia. It kept 
a plough at work during the year and was sufficient for the 
support of one ' hywisc,' or household. Henry of Huntingdon 
defines the hide as land sufficient to work one plough in 
the year. Despite much that has been said to the contrary, 
I am convinced that the hide, as the word is used in Domes- 
day, cannot be treated as a definite areal measure of land. 
The variations of the extent of hides which we find in monastic 
surveys are remarkable, and we have no definition con- 
temporary with Domesday of what a hide then represented. 
The inquisitions taken on the lands of Ramsey Abbey in the 
fourteenth century specify with great exactness the number 
of hides in each manor and the number of the acres contained 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 13 

in them, and the acreage varies from 80 to 252 acres. In the 
Abingdon Chronicle the quantity is estimated at 240 acres. 
In the first book of the * Liber Eliensis ' we have several notices 
of hides of 240 acres. In one instance in the Ramsey 
Chartulary there is mention of a hide containing 300 acres, 
and to show that the hide was well understood to be of 
variable extent, I will quote a passage from the Ramsey 
Chartulary which describes the manner of raising the relief of 
the free tenants of the Abbey, in which it is stated that an 
entire knight's fee is composed of certain hides, the hides of 
certain virgates, and the virgates of certain acres : to wit, 
that four hides make a knight's fee, four virgates make a hide, 
and acres make a virgate, ' videlicet aliquo loco plus aliquo 
loco minus.' 

It seems to be well understood that the hide or main- 
tenance of the household did not signify mere acreage of 
arable land, for belonging to it was necessarily pasture for 
the cattle which tilled it, but whatever may have been the 
Saxon hide as a measurable quantity of land, I think it is 
clear that the hide mentioned in Domesday is, like its equiva- 
lent the team, a term of assessment and not of measure ; it 
too was a basis of valuation, a designation of rateable value, 
and this is strongly confirmed by a comparison of the Ramsey 
Chartulary Survey with the entries in Domesday relating to 
the same lands. In Domesday the manor of Cranfield in 
Bedfordshire is rated for ten hides, and it is stated that there 
is land for twelve teams. It is further stated that there were, 
in demesne, two hides, and that the villans have ten teams, 
thus estimating that there were altogether twelve hides in- 
cluding the demesnes. In the Ramsey Survey it is stated 
that there are in Cranfield, actually, eleven hides, one virgate 
and a half and one third, or nearly twelve hides, besides the 
demesnes — but the demesne is reckoned €^ to the king for ten 
hides. Now it would seem that the Saxon estimate of ten 



U ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

hides was not a measure but a rough estimate of ten hides, 
where there was in fact a measurable quantity of eleven hides 
a virgate and a half and a third over and above the demesne, 
or altogether nearly fourteen hides including the demesnes. 
If the Domesday Commissioners had proceeded by measure 
they would have found the eleven hides one virgate and a 
half and a third, and not have returned ten hides as they did. 
These eleven hides and a half and a third make nearly twelve 
hides. Now the Domesday Commissioners' new assessment 
is that there is land for twelve teams^ and I think we must 
infer that both the assessment of the hides and the assess- 
ment of the teams are assessments of rateable value and not 
measurements, and indeed anyone who knows anything of 
the process of measuring land can hardly imagine the Domes- 
day Commissioner * dragging at each remove a lengthening 
chain.' Again, how is it possible to reconcile such an 
extract as the following with an idea of measurement ? ' It 
was assessed for four hides in King Edward's time, now 
for two. There is land for four teams.' * But the explanation 
of the difference comes in the same entry, for it is shown that 
the estate at the time of the Survey was worth 70J., whereas 
in King Edward's time it had been worth loor. ; hence the 
depreciation in value causes a new assessment at a lower rate. 
Again (i. in a)\ 

Earl Eustace holds Kreunge. It was assessed for 29 hides in 
King Edward's time, and now for five hides and one virgate. There 
is land for 20 teams. In demesne there are twelve hides. There 
are three teatns^ and there might be two more. The men have nine 
teams, and six more might be used. There is pasture for the cattle of 
the vill 

What can this language mean except assessment anciently by 
hides, and at the time of the Conquest by teams, and what 
can be fairer or more just than this mode of assessment } 

' Domesday, i. 137. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 15 

Innumerable instances may be given to show the inequality 
and unfairness of the ancient assessment by hides. Again, 
(L 30 by col. i), Queen Edith had held Esher and had been 
assessed for nine hides ; * nevertheless/ say the Domesday Com- 
missioners, ' there were then sixteen hides' They state that it 
does not give geld (as it was the king's), but they say ' there 
is land for fourteen teams.' This clearly again is assessment. 
The ancient sixteen hides were too small to fully occupy six- 
teen teams, so the new rate of assessment is set by the Com- 
missioners at fourteen teams. Throughout the Survey, wher- 
ever the land had been Saxon, and except in the counties of 
Derby, Nottingham, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, we have 
the ancient assessment of the hide, but in the counties above 
mentioned the ancient assessment is all by carucates of land 
instead of hides, the new assessment being by teams. 

In an entry relating to Herefordshire it is stated that 
Turstin, son of Rolf, has between Usk and Wye seventeen 
teams (' carucas '). Of these there are in demesne four and a 
half, the others are the men's. * Of this land^ (dehac terrd)^ the 
record goes on, five carucates and a half are claimed by tlic 
king's reeves, saying that Turstin took them without a gift. 
The same Turstin has six carucates of land (' carucatas terrae ') 
beyond Usk, and there his men have four teams. Here we 
have the word * caruca * and ' carucata ' used alternatively to 
mean the same thing, but neither word used in Domesday can 
be strained to mean areal measure — it must mean assess- 
ment 

A careful perusal of the Domesday for Rutlandshire shows, 
I think conclusively, that the object of the Domesday Com- 
missioners in their inquiry was to estimate, but not to 
measure, the quantity of land which could be profitably 
ploughed in every manor. They state at the commencement 
that * there are in Alfnodeston Wapentake two hundreds, in 
each of which there are twelve carucates at geld * (that is, paying 



i6 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

geld), and that * in each of which hundreds twenty-four teams 
could be employed/ so that the Wapentake was only assessed 
at half its rateable value. In Martinslei Wapentake they 
state that * there are twelve carucates paying geld,' and that 
• there may be forty-eight teams employed,' showing that it 
was only assessed at one-fourth of its value. The Commis- 
sioners appear to have assessed the royal manors in Martinslei 
Wapentake at a very low rate, for as to Oakham they say 
that ' Queen Edith had four carucates oi land at geld, but that 
there is land for sixteen teantsl and they go on ^o say that ' the 
king has two teams, and the villans thirty-sevatl and that the 
king might employ four more. As to Hameldun they say 
that Queen Edith had four carucates of land at geld, and they 
estimate that there is land for sixteen teams, but they state 
that the king has five teams and the tenants forty. Redlington 
is assessed for sixteen teams, but the king has four and the 
tenants thirty. In the manor of a subtenant of Redlington 
they say that * in his land there might be employed eight 
teams (caruc(E\ and nevertheless there are ploughing there 
(ibi arant) sixteen teams {caruc<B), From these entries it is 
manifest that the Commissioners were estimating (not over 
fairly) and not measuring the land. Innumerable examples 
of this kind might be brought forward to show that areal 
measure was not contemplated by the Survey, but only 
assessment of taxable value. 

I do not wish for a moment to suggest that there was not 
an ascertainable quantity of land, varying in extent according 
to locality and soil, which was called a hide or a carucate, and 
could be measured, but what I do wish to impress strongly 
upon the student of Domesday is that the words hide and 
carucate and caruca as they are generally used in Domesday 
do not in that record mean any definition of actual measure- 
ment, but do mean a rateable assessment approximated to the 
actual measurement, but still assessed by the Commissioners 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK i; 

and men of the Hundred by estimation ^di statement of rate- 
able or taxable value approximately arrived at, taking all the 
considerations of the quality and condition of the land into 
account, and giving a fair valuation or rateable value to every 
estate in the kingdom. 

From the Ramsey Chartulary we learn that the number 
of hides accounted for to the king was not always identical 
with the actual number on the estate, and also that land might 
lie * extra hidam.' The learned editor of the Domesday of St. 
Paul's notices the variation in the number of rateable hides in 
the manors belonging to the Church between the time of the 
Survey and the year 1222, and remarks that these changes 
are interesting not only as indicating changes in the condition 
of the manors as respecting cultivation, but as implying a 
power on the part of the tenants in capite of procuring from 
the crown a relaxation of the burden of hidage. 

As with the hide so with the carucate. It was an utterly 
uncertain quantity. Wherever we find definitions of the extent 
of carucates we find that they vary almost as much as the 
extent of the hide, so that every computation of acreage which 
is attempted to be deduced from the entries in Domesday 
must be fallacious unless we have extrinsic evidence of what 
was the true extent and acreage of the carucate within the 
manor in question. Even then we shall only arrive at the 
acreage of arable, for the carucate or ploughland is described 
as so much arable as can be managed with one plough and 
the beasts belonging thereto in a year, having meadow, pasture, 
and houses for the householders and cattle belonging to it, and 
it is thus defined by Statute 7 William IIL cap. 29, and see 
Coke Litt. 86 b. 

Fleta, who wrote in the time of Edward I., states, if land 
lay in three common fields, then nine score acres to the 
carucate, sixty for winter tillage, sixty for spring tillage, and 
sixty for fallows ; but if land lay in two fields, then eight score 

VOL. I. C 



1 8 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

acres to the carucate, one half for tillage and the other for 
fallow. Tliis general estimate is confirmed by a curious 
treatise on husbandry written in the fourteenth century by 
Sir Walter de Henley, knight, who endeavours to explain 
that by a little management the plough can be made to culti- 
vate twelve score acres yearly.* 

I have found about the time of Edward I. descriptions of 
carucates of 140 acres, 106 acres, 152 acres, and one of 50 
acres, and in the Battle Abbey Chartulary we read that the 
Church of St. Mary of Mildehall has in demesne the land of 
one plough, to wit one hundred acres} It will be seen from 
these instances that, as in the case of the hide, no exact 
number of acres can be assigned to the carucate, and the fact 
is made more evident from an entry in the Chartulary of 
Ramsey Abbey of the fourteenth century, where the jurors on 
an inquisition say that there are in demesne two carucates, 
but they dotit know how much they contain. That the carucate 
of the thirteenth century consisted of both arable and pasture 
may be further shown by the register of Geronden Abbey, 
where a charter describes half a virgate of land, ' that is to 
say twenty-five acres in one field and as much in the other field, 
with five acres of meadow : and a virgate of land, that is to say 
ten acres and a half in one field and as many in the other 
field, with two and a fialf acres of meadows* • The variations of 
the virgate, which was the subdivision both of the hide and the 
carucate, are quite as remarkable. In the Ramsey Chartulary 
under Cranfeld the jurors say that ' they do not know how 
many acres make a viigate, because sometimes forty-eight 
acres make a virgate and sometimes fewer.* I have found 
descriptions of virgates varying from fifteen to seventy-two 
acres. The virgate is often described as containing both arable 
and meadow. Usually four virgates make up the hide, but I 

I MS. Addit, 6159, f. 221. ' MS, CotL Tiberius, B.v. f. 88. 

■ MS, Lansdownif 415, £ 33. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 19 

find several cases of hides containing five virgates, and one 
containing eight. 

I am sorry to be obliged to detain you with these dry de- 
tails, but I am obliged to do so in order to lay before you 
the view that I take of the study of Domesday. I am aware 
that others more capable than I have made far more extensive 
study of this question of measurement, and I shall listen with 
the utmost; deference to everything that may be said upon 
the subject. I have endeavoured to follow Mr. Eyton in 
his attempt to apply a system of areal measurement to the 
Domesday return for Dorsetshire, but I confess I am unable 
to do so, and it seems to me that the examples he cites to 
prove his theory tend rather to disprove it 

Time does not permit me to go more fully into this ques- 
tion of measurement or assessment, but what I wish to impress 
upon the future student of Domesday as the result of my re- 
searches is that the great Record must be regarded as a great 
Rate Book and not as a Survey of Extent If the Con- 
queror had desired to be informed of the acreage of his tenants' 
lands he would have directed his Commissioners to as- 
certain the acreage and boundaries of each estate and to set 
forth the perambulations in their return ; nor would this have 
been a remarkable proceeding, for we must recollect that the 
usual Saxon method of conveyance was to convey by charter 
with the boundaries of the land thereon endorsed. This 
method of conveyance survived into Norman times in many 
cases, and the Commissioners had before them the Hundred 
men and the men of the vill, who would readily have presented 
the boundaries and estimated the acreage ; but no such thing 
is done. The Conqueror simply inquires how many teams 
might be employed and how many there are. It is obvious 
therefore that at any rate his primary object was assessment 
of producible value. An assessment of area without taking 
into consideration the quality and nature of the land would 



20 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

have been manifestly unfair, but the assessment of producible 
value was just to all, and conceived, as I have before said, in 
the highest spirit of equity. 

Moreover, it must be recollected that we have in Domesday 
no mention or return (or if any it is accidental) of the extent 
of waste land or of the extent of forest, and this fact I think 
strengthens the argument that no consideration of a return of 
areal measurement existed in the mind of the Conqueror when 
he instituted his inquiry. 

Of the general accuracy of the return of the assessments, 
so far as any collation of later records enables us to judge of 
them, there is very little doubt. All persons interested in pre- 
senting them accurately were present, and the return was in 
the most perfect degree a return to a public inquiry. Of the 
accuracy of the return of what I may call casual profits, as mills, 
fisheries, &c. there may be some doubt. If these casual profits 
were not at the time of the Survey let to tenants, I think that 
the Commissioners have frequently estimated their value in 
the gross value without specifying the items, and this particu- 
larly applies, I think, to inland fisheries, numerous instances 
occurring, particularly on the Thames, where several fisheries 
must have existed which are not specifically mentioned in the 
return. A remarkable instance came under my own observa- 
tion in the course of my professional work. On the river Taw 
there is a certain fishery which is fished by a fishing hatch at 
the mill situate between the manors of Monkton and Wear 
GifTard. In the entry relating to Wear Giflfard the Commis- 
sioners return half a fishery ('dimidia piscaria'), rendering 40^., 
but the return as to Monkton is silent as to the other half 
Now the records of the manor of Monkton show that this fishery 
has been fished in common by the lords of the two manors for 
many centuries, and the bailiffs' accounts show that it was the 
practice to divide the fish equally, even to the cutting in half 
of the odd fish Thi^, therefore, I take it, is a clear case of omis- 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 21 

sion from the Record, not that it is accidental omission, but that 
the Commissioners valued the half fishery of Monkton in the 
total value of the manor, without specifying it, because it was 
then in hand and not producing rent 

In some cases the returns of casual profits are much fuller 
than others. For example, at Limpsfield in Surrey the Com- 
missioners return two stone quarries and three hawks' nests, 
clearly matters outside their instructions except in respect of 
the total value. Returns of beehives are frequent, and these 
kinds of items show principally in those counties of which we 
either have the original returns, or in which the returns have 
been less abbreviated, as Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Norfolk, 
Essex, Suffolk, Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cam- 
bridge, than in the returns for the rest of the counties, as 
Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and the northern counties, 
where the returns are very closely abbreviated ; and it would 
seem that the entry of these casual profits was only made by 
the Commissioners in assessing the total value, and not as any 
part of the inquiry required of them ; and it must not be 
argued because such casual profits are not mentioned in 
respect of any particular manor, that they did not necessarily 
exist because they are not mentioned (for we cannot suppose 
that there were no hawks' nests or stone quarries in England 
except at Limpsfield and some few other places in which 
they are noticed). This, I think, strengthens the argument 
that this great Record must not be treated nor studied as if 
it were an actual survey b}^ mensuration and particulars, but 
it must be looked upon as a valuation and rate book, and 
studied from that point of view. 

Of matters of special interest as illustrative of the social life 
and condition of the people, the careful student will find many 
interesting entries in Domesday. Time does not permit me 
to go into such an inquiry, nor have I made the necessary re- 
search, but I would notice that there is in vol. ii. p. 59, a 



22 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

curious entry, showing that a man could endow his wife by a 
verbal declaration, probably joined with livery of seisin, in the 
presence of two witnesses, one a Norman and one an English- 
man ; and that the Hundred men bore witness to the Com- 
missioners that they had heard the husband acknowledge 
this. The practice of making feoffments of land quasi 
public is curiously illustrated by a record of the time of 
Henry III., in which the claim of the Abbot of St. Osith to 
land was defeated because the charter under which he claimed 
was made privately, and not read in the Hundred^ and the 
abbot could show no seisin. At p. 117 of vol. ii., we have 
an entry which shows that the town of Norwich rendered to 
the Saxon king 20/. yearly, and to the earl 10/., and also, it 
would appear, one bear and six bear-baiting dogs ('unum 
ursum et sex canes ad ursum '), which is, I think, the earliest 
notice of the ancient sport of bear-baiting. The Conqueror, 
however, does not appear to have encouraged the grosser 
sport, but he took instead 70/. ' ad pensum Regis,' and lOOs. in 
gift to the queen, and a gerfalcon, probably in lieu of the bear 
and bear dogs. These are instances by way of example. 
The careful student will find out others innumerable ; many 
of them, but by no means all, have been collected by Ellis in 
his ' Introduction.' 

A careful collation of the values of estates as they stood 
in the time of King Edward, with the value as assessed at 
the time of Domesday, would be highly interesting, and 
would, I think, show a very large increase of material pro- 
sperity during the Conqueror's reign. The entries relating to 
towns and cities deserve especial study. From them much 
valuable historical matter may be gleaned. With regard to 
the great portion of Domesday relating to the counties, I 
regard Domesday as an imperfectly worked gold mine. The 
quartz has been picked over in places by student after student, 
and many valuable nuggets they have found ; but to get at 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 23 

the real value of a mine, the rock must be crushed out, and 
the text of Domesday, bulky though it is, must be thoroughly 
analysed and sorted by a process analogous to crushing and 
washing out — a process of careful tabulation, analysis, and 
collation. This, though a great labour, might yet be done, 
and I would suggest that it might be done as follows. Let 
the student make his translation of the text in the form of a 
return to a parliamentary commission, by way of tabular 
analysis in columns, which might be somewhat as follows : 



Manor and Hundred. 
Saxon tenant. 
Saxon assessment 
Saxon value. 
Land not assessed. 
Norman tenant. 
Norman assessment 
Teams in demesne. 
Teams of the men. 



Population T.R.E. 

Population T.R. Will. 

Stock of demesne. 

Wood. 

Several pasture. 

Special items: Mills, Fisheries, 

Churches, Sundries. 
Remarks and memoranda of 

the Commissioners. 



This might be done without any great violence to the 
text, at any rate of the first volume of Domesday. The 
tabulation would have to be altered slightly to suit the forms 
of the second volume. The result of such a process would be 
that what we might call the auriferous quartz would be tabu- 
lated and set forth in statistical columns in a readily available 
and workable form ; and in the last column of remarks and 
memoranda, which might be called 'the sorting pan/ we 
should find all the already-discovered nuggets, together with 
many others hitherto unnoticed, and a mass of golden in- 
formation, the careful collation of which would give a rich 
harvest c^ historical material. 

If such a work could be set going by this Society, with 
the aid of the many devoted students of the great Record 



24 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

who are spread over the land, it would form j truly valuable 
monument of the anniversary we celebrate to-day. 

Of the practical uses of Domesday, outside its literary 
value, the principal appears to have been the determination 
of what was or was not land of ancient demesne, but before 
the Great Revolution which swept away feudal tenures, it was 
constantly referred to in the Courts for the determination of 
questions of tenure. Its uses survive to the present day, and 
it is frequently referred to in cases relating to manorial rights 
to show the legal existence of a manor anterior to the Statute 
of Quia Emptores. Also to show the relative positions of 
superior manors and sub-manors in questions respecting mining 
rights and rights of common over the wastes a few years ago. 
The decision in a great Lincolnshire mining case, involving 
mines to the value of many thousands per annum, was mainly 
rested on the evidence of Domesday. In cases relating to 
fisheries it is evidence of the highest value, and at the present 
moment I believe there is a question arising at Nottingham 
respecting the claim of the burgesses of that town to fish in 
the river, in which an entry at p. 280 may be of grave impor- 
tance, for Domesday states * that the burgesses used to fish in 
the water of Trent, and now they make complaint that they are 
prevented from so fishing/ There is a remarkable entry on 
the same page which tends to show that the conservancy of 
the Trent was entrusted at this early period to Nottingham^ 
and it is stated that if anyone hindered the passage of ships 
he was liable to be fined 8/. Many other examples might be 
given to show that the practical uses of this great Record are 
by no means exhausted after a lapse of 800 years. 

It has been generally supposed, and is distinctly stated 
by Blackstone, that the Conqueror imposed upon his subjects 
the yoke of military tenure, but there is a passage in Domes- 
day at p. 56 b, which seems clearly to show that in doing so he 
was not imposing a new yoke, but only systcmatising and 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 25 

repilating anew an old burden. The passage, which is wholly 
expressed in the past tense, and refers to the time of King 
Edward, is as follows : 

When geld was given in the time of King Edward the hide 
throughout Barkshire gave ^\d, at Christmas and as much at Whit- 
suntide, If the king sent an army anywhere only one knight went 
for five hides, and for his food and payment 4;. were given him for 
every hide for two months, but this money was not sent to the king 
but given to the knights. If anyone summoned to an expedition 
did not go, all his land was forfeited to the king. If anyone having 
promised to send a substitute, and the substitute did not go, his lord 
was acquitted for 50J. The king's demesne thane or knight dying, 
left all his arms, and horse with a saddle and another without a 
saddle, to the king for a relief If he had any hounds or hawks they 
were to be presented to the king, that he might accept them if he 
would 

This surely is a brief statement of the main incidents of 
feudal service, and is a fragment of history which goes to show 
that the Conqueror was not imposing new burdens, but only 
systematising and rearranging the incidence of old ones. 

I feel sure that the more this great work is studied, the 
more will the spirit of equity, order, and justice in which it 
was conceived be recognised, and the memory of our great 
Conqueror be absolved from the untrue accusations of shame- 
less greed and rapacity which are cast upon him by the 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicler, who has been followed by historian 
after historian almost down to the present day, until this great 
organiser and founder of this kingdom has come to be looked 
upon as a ruthless and greedy tyrant, because by his great 
genius and love of order and law^ he in some cases reorganised, 
in others swept away, the degenerate and effete systems of 
his predecessors, and established in their place a solid and 
substantial form of government and economical legislation 
which has developed into the mighty empire over which her 
most gracious Majesty at present rules. That the accusations 



26 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

of the Saxon chronicler are baseless and without foundation, 
we have, indeed, his own acknowledgment in the very same 
Chronicle, where speaking of the result of William's stem but 
righteous rule, he says : 

Among other things, the good order that William established is 
not to be forgotten. It was such that any man who was himself 
aught, might travel over the kingdom with a purse full of gold 
unmolested, and no man durst kill another, however great the injury 
that he might have received from him. 

And here I would refer the Domesday student to the 
valuable review of this period of our history which is contained 
in the preface to the second volume of my late master Sir 
Thomas DufTus Hardy's ' Materials for the History of Great 
Britain,' and will read from it his description of Domesday. 
He refers to the Anglo-Saxon hatred of the Survey, and says : 

The dislike of having their land, their crops, their stock, theur 
woods surveyed, of making accurate returns to a government 
inspector of field and fallow, of ploughs and teams, of pigs and 
sheep, is characteristic of a people who regard all official interference 
as preparatory to new exactions. But, however useful and even 
indispensable such knowledge may be for a just, wise, and philo- 
sophic system of public taxation, such prejudices are not confined to 
one era in our history. From the violence of those prejudices now, 
we may judge what their force must have been when every act of the 
new comer was regarded with suspicion ; and we may moreover 
judge of the astonishing advance which the Normans had made in 
all that belongs to the practice and theoiy of good government, 
when, in spite of such prejudices, they could conceive, carry out, 
and complete within a few years so wonderful a monument of 
economic science as Domesday. Domesday is a register of land, of 
its holders, its extent, its transfer, its resources, its produce, its 
deprived and present possessors ; the stock of the manors, the 
number of the tenants, cotters, slaves, and cattle employed upon 
them. It is at the same time a military register, showing the 
national capabilities of defence, the position of the defenders, and 
their relation to the crown ; a census of the population ; a survey of 
their means of subsistence, their employments,' their condition ; a 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 27 

topographical and genealogical dictionary of all the great families in 
England ; and a faultless record of real property, its incidences and 
distribution. From its pages the Conqueror could discover at a 
glance the state of his revenues, the wealth, the consequence, the 
natural connection of every personage in his kingdom. As it was the 
first, so is it the greatest and most perfect experiment which has 
ever been made by our own or any other people in economic legisla- 
tion ; and history since then, notwithstanding all the appliances, 
improvements, sciences, and enlightenment of modem times, can 
point to no achievement like it. 

And now after the lapse of 800 years through which this 
great Record has served as a reference to settle disputed 
questions, growing through lapse of time less and less useful 
until its utility is all but exhausted, we are to-day face to 
face with a demand for a new Domesday, and this demand 
comes not from the ruling powers desiring to ascertain the 
resources of the kingdom, and settle on a just and equitable 
basis the taxation of the subject, but it comes prompted by 
wholly different motives from the people themselves. It is 
asked for not to determine the sovereign's rights against his 
subjects, but to determine their respective rights as between 
themselves. The question of land transfer and r^istration 
of title is one of the great questions of the day, and, as the 
Earl of Derby remarked some years ago, it is a question 
which involves the making of a new Domesday ; but this 
new Domesday will have to be a very different record from 
its predecessor — this Domesday will have to be in truth a 
Survey, and not a rating or assessment. To accomplish the 
r^istration and the simplification of the transfer of land now 
divided and split up throughout the kingdom into innumer- 
able holdings, subject to infinite conditions, liabilities, burdens, 
and rights, no form of description by writing will suffice. The 
new Domesday, if it be ever made, must be based on cadastral 
survey on elaborate and accurate plan, aided by registration 
of particulars explanatory of the plan. The main difficulty 



28 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

of easy and cheap conveyance is the strict identification and 
description of the subject matter. Since the time of the 
ancient Domesday, when estates were almost entirely estates 
within a ring fence, the land has been divided and subdivided 
indefinitely, and now words and writing are inapt and impo- 
tent to accurately describe the inextricably interwoven parcels 
of land and property which form the estates of the present 
day. Survey, and survey only, and survey by cadastral 
measurement and plan, can and must be the only basis upon 
which such a Domesday Book as is now called for can be based. 
The labour and cost of such an undertaking is beyond all 
possibility of calculation, but it is called for and will doubtless 
ultimately be done. The compilation of the ancient Domes- 
day must have appeared at the time to have been a work of 
gigantic labour, but the genius of the Conqueror did not 
shrink from the task, and let us hope that now that we are 
celebrating the Sooth anniversary of his great work, we may 
be incidentally celebrating the inception of a larger and a 
greater work, the Domesday Survey of Queen Victoria, and 
that, when it shall be completed, the judgment of future 
ages upon it may be like that expressed by Sir Thomas 
Hardy upon the ancient Domesday : that it was ' the greatest 
and most perfect experiment which has ever been made by 
our own or any other people in economic legislation,' as we 
may well hope that with all the appliances, improvements, 
sciences, and enlightenment of modem times, it may and ought 
to be. 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 29 



DISCUSSION. 

Mr. O. C. Pell said that he had the greatest diffidence in 
making any remarks on a paper read by so very competent 
an authority as Mr. Stuart Moore, and it was only because, 
during two years, he had been much engaged in this subject, 
and had prepared and read a paper (now to be found in the 
' Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications,* vol. v. 
No. xxvii.) that he ventured to do so. 

He quite agreed with what Mr. Stuart Moore had said in 
regard to the equity of the Survey contained in Domesday, and 
he would shortly allude to a fact which confirmed it. He 
quite agreed, also, that it is impossible to say with truth that 
the words * carucatal * terra adcarucam^ or * hida ' (so far as the 
latter word may mean the land of one plough) point to one 
uniform measure of land ; but he said this for a reason not 
advanced by the reader of the paper. It must be borne in mind 
that the areal terra adcarucasoi Domesday in any one manor 
was the area of the land under the plough expressed in Domes- 
day Book by a statement of the number of terra ad carucam 
in such manor. Domesday not only gives the number of 
ploughs, but subdivides such statement into lord's ploughs and 
tenants' ploughs, such tenants' ploughs being very often an 
association of two or more virgates to work one plough. 
These virgates, when examined by later MSS., are found 
generally to be of three classes, one consisting of areas in 
decimal figures, another in areas of duodecimal figures, and 
another of sexdecimal figures, and the significance of this 
fact cannot be overestimated ; as he would shortly point out, 
they are either in acres of 8, 16 and their multiples, or in 
acres of 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 60 in number, or 12, 18, 24, 



30 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

36, 48, and 72. The area covered even by these associated 
ploughs (weighted as they were known to have been by the work 
that they were bound by their servitia and consuetudines to do 
on their lord's demesne) must of necessity be less than the area 
covered by the lord's ploughs, thus assisted. The terra ad 
carucam of the whole manor (being the area covered by the 
lord's ploughs, thus assisted, plus the terra ad carucam covered 
by Ae tenants' ploughs) would therefore, as regards any one 
plough, be the mean of all the ploughs, demesne and servile. 
For instance, the lord of some manor might have an area in 
demesne of 960 acres covered by six ploughs, each taking 160 
acres ; and the homines of the same manor might also have 
an area of 960 acres, covered by twelve associated ploughs 
(four viigatarii forming one plough), each plough taking 80 
acres, the two sets covering together 1,920 acres (all in the^ 
open fields with roods and acres intermixed), being a mean 
of 120 acres to each plough, demesne and associated. 

The terra in such a manor is expressed in two ways in 
Domesday, i.e. either as terra ad carucam for 18 ploughs, or, 
if each virgate of the homines is treated with its two boves as 
a terroy then as terra for 54 ploughs ; and sometimes it is ex- 
pressed in both ways in the same manor. It is impossible, 
therefore, to say, from reading Domesday alone, what tlie 
area of the terra ad carucam of one plough in any one manor 
was, though they could, by ascertaining from later MSS. what 
the size of the virgate of that manor was, draw a pretty 
certain conclusion as to it by noticing the number of villani 
&c. as recorded in Domesday. 

But in regard to the uses of the words * hida,' * terra ad 
car.,' and ' carucata ' as units for taxational purposes, the case 
was very different Domesday was a rate book, and the unit 
of assessment must have been definite. That unit was the 
geldable, not the areal, 'hida' or 'carucata,' and the size and 
value of it cannot be ascertained from the 'valet,' or 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 31 

*summa' of values, of the whole manor; because such 
'summa' contains the values of the several appendicia be- 
longing to the manor, such as the rents and services, the 
mills and fisheries, and several other things, over and above 
the bare land actually taxed. 

But luckily it was possible to find many small plots of land, 
disentangled and unconnected with any of these appendicia, 
recorded in Domesday with their value annexed, being the 
value of such land per se. Two cases are sufficient for illustra- 
tion : one is the land of Hardwinus in Belesham (Domesday 
Book, f. 190 i), Cambridgeshire, where 80 acres are taxed at 
thirteen shillings and fourpence, and Harduic in Cambridge- 
shire (Domesday, f. 191 6), where ten acres are taxed at twelve- 
pence. It will be observed that at Harduic it is one and 
one-fifth of a penny per acre, at Balsham it is just twopence 
per acre, and that 10 anglico numero = 12. Taking one 
pound or liira of silver to represent the taxable unit (and 
speaking for himself alone he had no doubt that it did), 
it will at once be seen that, assuming this fact, it would 
take 120 acres to make the pound at two pence per acre, and 
240 acres to make the pound at one penny per acre. But in 
a two-course manor (as in the beginning of things it probably 
would be) the fallow, or one -half of it, would be in each year 
uncropped, and if it was * wara ' (hence the word * ad warectum*) 
that is, * jacens in communi,' of or belonging (as to rights of 
common on it) to the whole body of tenants, then, only 120 
acres would be taxed, but at the rate of two pence per acre, 
which equals one penny per acre on the two hundred and forty 
acres. Of this untaxed fallow Domesday Book takes no notice. 
The * hida ' or * carucata ' was therefore (when used to express 
the geldable unit) a librate, or one pound's worth of land — 
that is, 120 acres at twopence, where the sole right belonged 
to the owner, or, where the fallow was * wara ' and all had 
liberty to common on it when fallow, then 240 acres at one 



32 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

penny per acre. There are repeated instances of this in old 
MSS. : for instance, in the Survey of Littleberi in Essex, in 
Add. MSS. No. 6165 of the British Museum. 

But of course the question arises, H6w does that tally with 
the case of Harduic and its taxation at one and one-fifth 
of a penny ? It arises in this way. A libra or pound of silver 
may be divided in two ways — either according to the divisions 
shown in Troy weight, or those shown in Apothecaries' weight 
He must now ask them to carry their minds back to the time 
when the Anglo-Saxon and other tribes arrived in England. 
They would find the arable land in open fields and in acre 
strips, so well described by Mr. F. Seebohm in his ' Village 
Community.' 

The Anglo-Saxons appear to have divided their libra like, 
and perhaps by adoption from, the Romans ; their scilling was 
of four peninga, and seventy-two went to their pound of silver ; 
consequently one and one-fifth peninga would equal one 
denarius of a people dividing the libra according to the 
division of Troy weight, when sixty shillings would go to the 
pound. That the original Anglo-Saxon shilling was four 
peninga appears from sec. v. of Ina's Laws (Thorpe, * Ancient 
Laws and Institutions,' vol. i. p. 140), where an ox's tail is 
valued at one scill of four peninga, and sec. xi. of the Con- 
queror's Laws (p. 472), where the English penny is stated to 
be fourpence. In the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum 
the Danish king it was necessary, for stating the amount of 
* weregilds,' that some form of account should be adopted that 
would fit in to the mode of accounting used by the different 
kingdoms, and a solidus of five denarii of twenty-four units 
was adopted. (See the treaty, Thorpe, vol. ii. pp. 481-483, 
and more especially the heading * De eodem in Mercennorum 
laga,' p. 484, where 7,200 shillings make 120 pounds.) None 
the less the old shilling of account of four denarii of eighty 
units still remained and was referred to by the Conqueror, as 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 33 

he said before. He must ask them therefore to keep in mind 
that the Anglo-Saxons divided their libra of silver like the 
Romans, and that the Danes and Normans divided it as the 
English do now. Moreover, the Angli had one method of count- 
ing (differing from others), by which 120 with them really 
meant 144 in numbers and 240 meant 288. In just the same 
way they would find that their libra of silver, i.e. 5,760 grains 
or units, divides up into 288 units of 20, that is into 72 shil- 
lings of fourpence of 20 units each. When the land was first 
occupied by the Angli, the Jutes, and others, the acre and 
good strips, existing as such long before their coming, would 
be distributed according to their respective ways of counting, 
coinciding as it did with their respective divisions of the libra. 
In some settlements the men would receive virgatesof 10, 20, 
or 30 acres, in others 12, 24, or 36 acres, and each answering 
to the respective divisions of the libra. The libra of silver 
would in this way be spread over 240 acres in the one class 
of settlement, and over 288 acres in the other. When, how- 
ever, the first Domesday was proceeded with, the difficulty of 
course arose, how the 240 acres answering to one pound of 
silver could be reconciled with 288 also answering to one 
pound of silver. 

The difficulty was apparently got over in a way most ad- 
vantageous to the Anglo-Saxon men (if their lords, Saxon 
or Norman, permitted them to keep it and did not grasp the 
benefit themselves). This was done by putting out of taxa- 
tion, ' extra hidam,' one-sixth of the Anglo-Saxon land ; thus 
of 12 acres two would go out, of 24 four, of 36 six, and so on, 
and out of 288, 48 acres. Thus it is that where the word 
hida is used as to the amount taxed * erga regem,' if it is 
dealing with Anglo-Saxon land, one-fifth more must be added 
on to ascertain the actual area. The case of Cranfield, 
alluded to by Mr. Stuart Moore, is a case in point ; the ' decem 
hidae erga regem ' means in effect 'decem librae/ or 1,200 acres 

VOL. I. D 



34 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

of taxed land, but 1,440 acres (not 1,220) of land in area. To 
show that he did not speak without book as regards this, he 
would refer them to the Hundred Rolls of the year 1279, 
being a Domesday of Edward I.'s reign, or a return made for 
taxational purposes. At one place in vol. ii. the officers deal 
with Shelford Magna in Cambridgeshire, and set out for 
purposes of taxation, under the heading ' De Servis,' a list of 
tenants by name holding 1 5 acres each, and under the head- 
ing ' Aliis servis,' another list of men holding seven and a 
half acres each. In the Cottonian MS. Claudius, C, xi. they 
would find a survey of the same manor in the year 1277 (only 
two years earlier) where precisely the same people hold, the one 
class 18 and the other class 9 acres, thus showing that the 
area of taxed land was one-sixth less than the actual area : or, 
in other words, one-fifth must be added on to the taxed land 
in order to ascertain the real area. Moreover, in some cases 
the definite names of *sexacra' and 'sexlond' were given to 
this sixth ; thus in the Domesday of St. Paul's (Hale, p. 46), 
there will be found an entry showing that Ralf fil letlede held 
* I acram sexacram extra hidam,' and in the same page ' il 
sexacras extra hidam.' So also, at page 49, there is a list of 
persons who hold eight acres of ' sexacras,* and another in 
regard to * sexloiid.' Reverting back to Harduic, it will be at 
once seen that ten acres taxed at 12 denarii (each consisting 
of 20 units) really represents a taxation of one denarius (of 
Norman denarii of 24 units) per acre. 

The practice of counting by the long hundred, i.e. 120 for a 
hundred, still exists in the neighbourhood of Liibeck, and also 
in England ; and he would conclude by quoting a passage in 
Frank Buckland's Life (3rd edition, p. 309) : * The crab-fishers 
of Cromer have a peculiar arithmetic ; thus two crabs are 
counted as one. The two crabs being called a cast, six score 
crabs are called a hundred. At Cromer, therefore, a hundred 
crabs means 240.' But their forefathers were more advanced 



ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 35 

than that when they got from William the Conqueror for 
a hide of wara (equal to 288 acres) a taxation of only 120 
acres. 

Sir J. B. Phear agreed with Mr. Stuart Moore in the view 
that the Domesday Book was not a survey of extent : that is, 
it did not profess to give the acreage of the manorial area, or 
any approximation thereto. In a sense it was a book of 
manorial assessment, and so far was (as Mr. Stuart Moore 
termed it), a sort of rate book : he did not, however, think 
with Mr. Stuart Moore that the primary object of its being 
compiled was that it should serve as a means of taxing in the 
modern sense of that word. No doubt the capacity and the 
liability of the manorial community to take its share of public 
burdens, among which, of course, was the payment of the 
Danegeld when levied, was apportioned or measured in terms 
of the hide, an ancient unit, which in name pointed to the 
house, homestead, or family, and in the concrete was the 
quantity of arable land actually tilled by the Anglo-Saxon 
eight-ox team, with its co-operative plough staff. And it 
seems manifest that under the earlier form of rural economy, 
the strength and substance of each village community bore an 
immediate relation to its ploughing power. But it was not 
for the purpose of rectifying the basis upon which the Danegeld 
or any similar tax should be levied that the Domesday Survey 
was undertaken. Its main object, as he apprehended it, was 
to provide the Barons of the Exchequer with an authoritative 
record by which their court should be guided in taking the 
half-yearly accounts of the sheriffs. 

At the time of the Conquest and before, the revenue of the 
crown was not the result of any regular system of taxation, 
as we understand it To use an old phrase, * the king lived 
of his own.* He had his manors like other lords, and the pro- 
duce or firms ' of these royal demesnes constituted the main 



36 ON THE STUDY OF DOMESDAY BOOK 

portion of his revenue. He was also entitled even under the 
Saxon system to certain so to say feudal incidents, which 
were enlarged under the Norman rule in respect to all other 
manors besides his own. The sheriffs of counties were his 
officers for collecting the firms from the bailiffs of his manors, 
and all other royal dues, for which they accounted twice a 
year before the Barons of the Exchequer. The Domesday 
Book afforded a complete register of the manors existing at 
the time of its compilation, the holders of them, and all such 
facts in relation thereto as were needed to enable the Barons to 
check the sheriff's collections and audit his accounts. It was in 
essential character a series of short abstracts of the different 
manorial bailiffs' annual accounts, verified locally by the 
Domesday Commissioners. This explains the comparative 
shortness of the period of time within which the Commission 
performed its work, a period quite insufficient for an original 
land survej^ and measurement of extent even of the roughest 
kind. 



On t^ 
^tttSie^ ^tttSeg of ^un^at^^ anb He 

A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE HISTORY. 

By HYDE CLARKE, V.P.R.Hist. S. 

In the discussions on the question whether the Domesday 
Survey was the issue of a system of registry of written records 
or of oral communications, I maintained that however minute 
the information appears to persons here,, it is within the bounds 
of that which is orally communicated and transmitted in 
many regions and many epochs of society. 

Indeed all the particulars in Domesday are such as would 
be known to a village head or chief in Turkey, or in any 
Asiatic country. He would likewise know what the particu- 
lars were at a former period, equivalent to T.R.E. These are 
the particulars which the head of a village has to keep in his 
mind for requisitions in foreign or civil war, taxations, and 
impositions. 

In some parts of Turkey the Mussulman village school- 
master, or hojahy may commit memoranda to writing, or the 
village scribe,, or mahto, in some parts of India, but many 
village heads of the subject races are ignorant of writing. 
Where records are kept is not in the villages, but in the 
superior division equal to the Hundred, 

Armin Vamb^ry^ in giving a review of the literature of 



i 



38 ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY, 

Hungary for 1886,* enumerates one work relating to the 
ancient Turkish occupation of Hungary, which illustrates the 
system of written registration, and affords an example of 
records of the cadastre class. 

The work by Messrs. Velios and Kammerer is styled 
* Magyarorszdgi Torok Kinestdri Defterek,* which he trans- 
lates * Treasury Lists of the Turks in Hungary ; * more literally 
it would be * Registers of the Turks in Hungary.' Defter is 
indeed a register kept by a defterdar^ and in this instance 
refers to the defterdar who was the chief accountable officer 
in an administrative division under the Turkish empire. 

Professor Vamb^ry observes : ' These registers constitute a 
most remarkable monument of Turkish rule, showing as they 
do the painstaking administration of the Ottoman civil and 
military officers of that time. Not only every town and place 
of note, but every village has a special register, in which the 
name of every peasant, and the quality and quantity of his 
land, are accurately put down.' 

It will be seen that the form is that of Domesday. Pro- 
fessor Vamb^ry says the details are accurately put down. 
He means with precise figures, for the quantities are estimated 
and customary, the Turkish dunum, like the English hide &c., 
not being measured by survey. 

The particulars in Hungary would be furnished by the 
local heads to the authorities of the kaza or hundred, and the 
mukhtars or elders would be chiefly * Magyars,* giving un- 
written information recorded in Turkish in the defter. 

The book above mentioned may be recorded as an illus- 
tration of Domesday and the cadastre system. 

There are many features in Turkish rural districts which 
illustrate those of Domesday. Indeed it is in a country like 
Turkey that the history of various epochs may be seen in its 
real conditions. The village has its woods and common 

' Athenaum^ January I, 1887, p. 21. 



AND ITS RELATION TO DOMESDAY BOOK 39 

pastures with rights of pasturage analogous to Domesday. 
It may be that practices supposed to be peculiar in Asia may 
hereafter explain those at home. A fruit-bearing tree, as an 
olive, is a property separate from the field on which it grows, 
and its ownership will pass separately. In the woods the 
honey trees also are under conditions different from the other 
trees. Honey trees may belong to the village community, or 
a honey tree may have an individual owner. As a land com- 
missioner in Asia Minor, I was called upon to award com- 
pensation for such trees. A tree would be worth an acre 
of arable land, and might be worth more. In Asia for thou- 
sands of years, as in England for centuries, the wild honey 
serves as a resource for home food, and is a commodity for 
outside sale ; of importance before sugar was introduced, and 
still, in the shape of helwa^ as in the time of th#^ Greek settlers 
and conquerors in Asia, able to hold its own. 

There is a practice in Asia which is the same as that lately 
exercised in Spain with regard to the pasturage of the flocks 
of merino sheep, and which is likewise of remote antiquity 
and dependent for its origin on the relations between the 
nomad or pastoral tribes and the agricultural population. 
Over a great part of Asia the nomads are still to be found, 
and the Kurds and Turkomans may be seen on the shores of 
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean with herds of kine, 
sheep, goats, horses, and camels. When the crops are 
gathered in, the nomads claim to pasture, and to remove 
fences where existing and other impediments. Certain plots 
and gardens are, however, recognised as enclosed. It is this 
right of late pasturage called bozooky which has impeded the 
substitution of the late maturing American cotton for the 
short staple cotton, which matures earlier. 

The condition of common pasturage in Domesday may 
represent a survival of the general tradition as to pasturage 
throughout the ancient world. 




40 ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY, 

Tillage in Asia, as in Southern Europe, depends on the 
possession of plough oxen, and the holdings correspond to 
the working of the ploughs, as in Domesday, and are limited. 
The division of the crop depends on the ownership of the 
oxen by the lessor or the tenant If the tenant finds the 
oxen, then he takes the larger share. 

In the division the seed, about one-fourth of the crop 
should first be set aside, but spmetimes the tithe is taken. 
The tithe, or Government tax or proportion, is always set 
aside .before division between the land-owner and tenant. 
These are the general principles, but in the application there 
is great diversity. 

Land of itself is of no more real value in Asiatic Turkey 
than it can have been at Domesday Survey, or than it is in 
a new colony. I have awarded as the value of land as good 
as any in the prairies from five shillings to twenty shillings 
per acre. In the purchase of a large estate the land would 
not be measured off, nor the outer bounds in woods and 
hilltops be defined. As has been cited during the conference 
with regard to the bounds of Sussex and Surrey, so in the 
East the bounds of properties or administrative divisions may 
meet in an undefined region. 

The quality of land, even if it be a deep black alluvial 
mould, forty or fifty feet deep, is little regarded. Common field 
or tarla has a nominal price, but arable land, if it has not gone 
back to tarla^ has its price. In the case of land which has 
been cleared for cotton at an expense of twenty pounds an 
acre or more, it has its value, equivalent to European rates, 
and so likewise have vineyards, fig and other orchards. 

Until the alteration made by the great Sultan Mahmood 
in our times, much of the land was held as a military fief or 
timar^ and the country was covered with a body of tenants in 
capite. The princely or baronial timariot, living in the castle 
which was the head of his barony, assigned portions to his 



AND ITS RELATION TO DOMESDAY BOOK 41 

military and household retainers, and they again subinfeuded. 
Many of these were relatives of the tenant in capite^ and con- 
stituted a military class. The tillage was largely carried on 
by the descendants of the ancient cultivators. 

Thus the conditions of William the Norman's time have 
been seen by many Englishmen and others. Against these 
great barons the Sultans were in constant struggle, some- 
times in actual warfare ; sometimes only retaining their nomi- 
nal superiority by conceding the local functions of adminis- 
tration to the powerful rebel. 

What followed the suppression of the timariots, and what 
we have seen, is a picture of the decline of the Norman barons 
in England. Many of the timariots suffered under charges 
of treason ; others, having no longer the resources of war to 
maintain their expenditure became embarrassed, alienated 
their estates and succumbed to the usurers. The retainers 
remained on their small properties, and constitute a petty 
squirearchy of yeomen, holding inferior offices in local 
administration, and largely supplying the ranks of the sub- 
altern officers in the newly disciplined army. 

In the main, the greater barons in Asia and Europe have 
fallen, while the large body of the squirearchy fairly holds its 
ground. 

The tenant maintains his position by the very nature of 
it The Norman baron might displace the English thane, 
but he could not displace the English tenant. The cultivator 
is a cultivator. The Norman cultivator could not practically 
be displaced from Normandy. Normans and the Norman 
warrior did not want to cultivate in England. This is a 
chief and natural cause of the few Frenchmen enumerated 
in the Survey. The timariot was under the same conditions. 
His Mussulman retainer would live on the fief, and in peace 
would enjoy his horse and his greyhounds, but the native 
cultivated. 



42 ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY, 

To cultivate a country there must be a cultivating class, 
adapted to the land, to the soil and the climate, and this 
population will hold its own. The usurer may remove the 
proprietor, though it does not always suit him to do this ; but 
unless there is a large population competing under land hunger, 
he cannot, except at his own loss, dispossess the cultivator. 

The tenant of Domesday was sheltered and protected by 
his personal value, and any surplus of population was drawn off 
to the cities or to war and adventure. The dwelling and the 
outhouses are of no independent value, as they are mere ease- 
ments necessary for the cultivator. No one will buy these 
over a tenant's head. So, too, a steady vitality, it will be found, 
was given to the subtenants of Domesday, and they survived 
to profit by better social conditions when those of the former 
epoch had passed away with the superiors of the epoch. 

Many of the observations here made apply to large 
portions of India, and of other parts of the world. Thus the 
study of Domesday has to be pursued as one of comparative 
history, obscure for the time in our understanding of the 
details, but cap?ible of explanation and illustration more from 
living institutions than from passages in books. Chance 
survivals in our country may afford us some materials of 
comment or rather of conjecture, but the wide field of the 
world must be surveyed for practical and working facts com- 
petent to afford fair comparisons. 

Pursuing the parallel between Domesday and Turkey, it 
will be seen that the owner or purchaser must himself, 
though legally free, be practically adscripius gkba. If not 
on the spot to receive his dues in kind, under the metayer 
system it goes hardly with him. Therefore he can only be 
an absentee by means of the ballivus. This is a person not to be 
implicitly depended upon. If possible he is one of the family. 
He lives on the land, of which he must have some know- 
ledge, and he takes care of the domain. One of the difficulties 



AND ITS RELATION TO DOMESDAY BOOK 43 

in the way of a town-living usurer foreclosing is the want of 
a ballivus, wKo is not to be supplied from towns. 

In a country thinly peopled and with bad communications, 
com, the general crop, is not saleable except in times of 
dearth. In good times all are producers, and compete for 
the small supply of the towns. After Domesday the wealth 
of England must have been created and developed by its river 
and water communications, if not before, for the country was 
rich T.R.E. 

It must be observed that the tithe is a means of abstract- 
ing customers from the cultivator. In England the monas- 
teries were the chief receivers of tithe, and were therefore 
sellers. In Turkey the tithe is the land-tax belonging to the 
Grovemment The economical result is to narrow the market. 

Incidentally it may be observed with regard to Domesday . 
that the tithe was not appropriated generally to a parochial 
clergy, and information is wanted as to the distribution of 
churches and priests. Both might exist in a manor, but 
they had no necessary connection, and no necessary title to 
the tithes. 

The landowners claimed the disposal of the tithes for the 
ecclesiastical purposes to which they were applicable. In 
preference to devoting the tithes for parochial endowment 
they dedicated them to the endowment of new or the enrich- 
ment of old monasteries. The same practice had prevailed 
in Normandy before, and also concurrently. The lord gave 
the tithes to his priory, the subtenant gave small parcels of 
land, or other property (as the charters in the * Gallia Chris- 
tiana' &c. show). 

Thus it was that England became covered with the new 
priories, at small expense to the barons. The parochial clergy 
were subsequently endowed by the care of their chiefs, the 
bishops, and in concert with the abbots and priors. As on 
the dissolution of the monasteries their tithes were presented 



44 ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY, 

to laymen, it must be the case that the tithes of many parishes 
have never been in the possession of the parochial clergy, as 
is generally assumed. 

The disposing power of the lord or baron was not termi- 
nated by the grant of the tithes to a monastery. This is 
shown in the instance of the Limesis. Ralph de Limesi, then 
residing in the south, founded the priory of Hertford, and 
endowed it Among the tithes afterwards assigned were the 
tithes and church of Maxstoke in Warwickshire.* On the ex- 
tinction of the male line, Clinton, the heir of the half barony, 
founded the priory of Maxstoke, to which he transferred these 
tithes. Under these circumstances it seems difficult to conceive 
that at Domesday the doctrine can have prevailed that the 
tithes were the freehold of the parson, or that he held any 
freehold. 

The relations with the Ulema or ecclesiastical body in 
Turkey, in some respects worked out as in England. What 
may be called the Church acted as a compact unit, endowed 
with civil privileges and spiritual powers. In a state of 
society where life and property were exposed to hazard, 
persons in Europe became tenants of the monasteries for 
their own lands. After the Conquest the monasteries appear 
to have retained many men as warriors for their own defence 
and the performance of military services. Thus the small 
squirearchy was subsidised. 

In Turkey, under uncertain political conditions, a very 
large part of the lands and houses has been made what is 
called vakuf, and assigned for various ecclesiastical services, 
sometimes by the founder of a mosque or other institution, 
and sometimes for simple protection of property. The tenant 
was reinstated in his land, paying a small chief rent, but on 
the failure of male heirs the land lapsed to the 'Church.' As 
vakuf property increased, so was there a disposable surplus. 

* See De Limesi in Dugdale, Baronagium, Warwickshire, MonasHe^n. 



AND ITS RELATION TO DOMESDAY BOOK 45 

In the Middle Ages, too, further property was with accumu- 
lated surpluses purchased by monasteries ; so in the East new 
properties were purchased as vakuf. 

As at the dissolution of monasteries, so under Sultan 
Mahmood, a great extent of .-property was found to be in 
mortmain, and the Ottoman Government is now administer- 
ing this by commission, and providing for the enfranchise- 
ment of ecclesiastical tenures. 

As in England the tombs of the baron are found in his 
priory, so in Turkey are those of the Dere Bey (or valley- 
lord, as he is now called) around his mosque. 

In the economical conditions of such lands and popula- 
tions, the imposition of a Danegeld or money tax is particu- 
larly odious, and felt as a great oppression. It carries off 
every coin obtained in prosperous years, and puts the other 
valuables in the hands of the usurer. The general state is neces- 
sarily one of barter, and the use of coin is only exceptional. 

As money can be raised by the Government on such 
taxes in advance, the levy falls into the hands of the lenders 
and the farmers of their rights, who exercise all possible 
oppression. Legal rights of the population are thereby dis- 
regarded. As confirmed in Magna Charta, so elsewhere, the 
working bullocks are legally exempt from seizure, but even 
this primary condition of social existence is frustrated, and 
a population may be thrown into a condition of misery for 
years, and land may go out of cultivation, through the exac- 
tions of the hated publican or farmer of the taxes. The pub- 
lican and his servants in Judaea, in Norman England, or in 
Turkey belonged to the foreign and less esteemed races. 

A feature of the Domesday Survey also recognisable in some 
parts of Turkey is the praedial slave. He is there a negro. 

The village herdsman taking out the herds and flocks to 
the common pasture is an institution even of wider applica- 
tion than those hitherto referred to. 



46 ON THE TURKISH SURVEY OF HUNGARY. 

Frankpledge takes its natural place, and a fine on the 
village community is the great resource for the stoppage of 
the robberies and misdeeds of outlaws harboured within its 
domain. 

A marked difference between Domesday England and 
modem Turkey is the number of the smiths in the former 
region and their absence in the latter. The wright, the 
maker of wooden ploughs, tools, and wagons, is common to 
both ; but long distances may be travelled in some parts of 
a country like Turkey without finding a smith. The shoeing- 
smith is provided with ready-made shoes and nails. In many 
parts of Turkey, and in Hungary at the time of the Survey 
quoted and now, the provision of iron is made by travelling iron- 
workers (usually gipsies). It has been supposed that Eng- 
land was dependent on the ironworks recorded in Domes- 
day, but it is possible that the supply of iron as of charcoal 
was not, as we suppose, dependent on fixed establishments. 
In India, Turkey, Hungary, the migratory ironworker makes 
his own small furnace two feet square, and smelts haematite 
and other suitable ores, producing an iron or mild steel at 
one process, wrought into shoes and nails, and sold about the 
country. 



®ome0Mg ^utSiSafe. 

By Canon ISAAC TAYLOR, M.A., LL.D., Litt. D. 

Domesday Book is a vast mine of materials for the social 
and economical history of our country, a mine almost inex- 
haustible, and to a great extent as yet unworked. Among 
national documents it is unique. There is nothing that 
approaches it in interest and value except the Landnimab6k, 
which records the names of the original settlers in Iceland 
and the designations they bestowed upon the places where 
they settled, and tells us how the island was taken up and 
apportioned among them. Such a document for England, de- 
scribing the way in which our forefathers divided the territory 
they conquered, and how 'they called the lands after their own 
names/ would indeed be priceless. But the Domesday Book 
does, indirectly, supply materials for the history of the 
English as well as of the Norman Conquest, for it records 
not only how the lands of England were divided among the 
Norman host which conquered at Senlac, but it gives us also 
the names of the Saxon and Danish holders who possessed 
the lands before the great battle which changed all the future 
history of England, and enables us to trace the extent of 
the transfer of the land from Englishmen to Normans ; it 
shows how far the earlier owners were reduced to tenants, and 
by its enumeration of the classes of population — freemen, 
sokemen, villans, cottiers, and slaves — it indicates the nature 



48 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

and extent of the earlier conquests. Thus we leam that in 
the West of England slaves were numerous, while in the East 
they were almost unknown, and hence we gather that in the 
districts first subdued the British population was exterminated 
or driven off, while in the West it was reduced to servitude. 
The ethnological value of Domesday Book is therefore great 

All our present English counties are not included in the 
Survey. The omissions are significant Lancashire, of 
course, is not mentioned, since it was not till the Flantagenet 
period that three incoherent blocks of territory were made 
into a county as an appanage for a scion of the Royal 
House. Blackbumshire and Salfordshire, the r^ion between 
the Ribble and the Mersey, are surveyed as a part of the 
county of Chester, while Fumess and Amoundemess, the 
district between the Ribble and Morecambe Bay, belonged to 
the West Riding of Yorkshire. 

Nor is there any mention of Cumberland and Westmore- 
land. The southern portions of these counties were then 
included in Yorkshire, but the remainder, which belonged to 
the old kingdom of Strathclyde, still formed a fief of the 
Scottish king, and was only subdued by William Rufus, who 
transplanted to Carlisle many of the peasants who were dis- 
possessed by the formation of the New Forest The reasons 
for the omission of Durham and Northumberland are not so 
clear. The Palatinate of Durham was the border march of 
the Earl Bishop, and may have enjoyed fiscal immunities and 
exemptions, while Northumberland had probably been so 
harried by William and the Scots as to be almost depopu- 
lated. Rutland, that anomalous little shire, is partly described 
under Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, and Wales was 
still unconquered. With these exceptions, the boundaries of 
the counties were pretty much as they are at the present 
day. 

Putting aside the more strictly historical interest of the 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 49 

Domesday record, and the interesting facts which relate to 
the method by which it was compiled, its condition, and its 
preservation ; putting aside also the invaluable statistical in- 
formation which it contains, we may perhaps venture on less 
trodden ground, and note what may be called the Domesday 
Survivals which may be discovered at the present day. 

The Domesday Book everywhere implies, if it does not 
expressly record, social and economical conditions widely 
different from any that now prevail, but the transformation 
has been so gradual that in many counties innumerable 
survivals of those bygone conditions may be still detected. 
The Present is so intimately interwoven with the Past, that 
there are few country parishes in which the Domesday record 
fails to throw some flashes of light on the meaning of common 
matters of rural observation. The facts recorded with pen 
and ink on the venerable pages of the Domesday Book are, 
for the most part, still legible, scored deeply on the surface of 
the soil by the Domesday plough, and others survive in 
customary tenures, in the names of fields and farms, the forms 
and dimensions of inclosures, and the directions followed by 
hedges, roads, and rights of way. 

To understand such survivals we must first picture to our- 
selves the aspect of an ordinary country parish at the time of 
the Survey. 

England is now pre-eminently a land of small inclosures ; 
the numerous hedges, and the hedgerow timber, give it much 
of its rich beauty. At the time of the Conquest inclosures 
were few. Here and there were great forest tracts, thinly 
peopled and fed by swine. Elsewhere there were vast open 
treeless districts, resembling the great stretches of tilled land 
now existing in many parts of France and Germany, the 
dwellings not dotted about by the wayside, but collected in 
scattered hamlets, consisting of a few houses or cots, often not 
more than five or six. Close to the little hamlet would be 

VOL. L E 



so DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

some few acres — a score or so — of inclosed meadow mowed 
for hay, but the rest would be open arable, protected only by 
temporary fences of dead thorns, while beyond the arable 
were great stretches of rough moorland pasture. 

In most of the larger hamlets stood the Lord's 'hall,' 
built of stone or timber, brick being almost unknown. Round 
the Hall clustered the houses of the tenants of the manor ; those 
of the villans or boors, who were small farmers holding their 
lands by fixed services, with mud walls, earthen floors, and 
thatched roofs, each standing in its ' toft,' with a little narrow 
acre strip of ' croft ' behind it, and the still ruder huts of the 
cottiers, and of the serfs who were sold with the land. The 
land, to a great extent, was held in common by the village 
community, and tilled by co-operative labour. The best land 
lay in great open arable fields, which were divided into narrow 
strips, usually acres and half-acres, each strip about a furlong 
in length, and a perch or two perches in breadth. These little 
strips were separated by turf balks, and the holding of each 
villan was as a rule either a bovate or a virgate, made up of a 
score or two of these strips scattered about the open arable 
fields, and usually amounting to from ten to thirty acres in 
all. He did not hold the same strips year by year, but every 
second or third year one division of the arable land was 
thrown into fallow, over which the cattle of the village had 
common rights of pasturage. Beyond the village and the 
arable fields were extensive wastes, rough pastures of coarse 
grass, overgrown with thin wood or brushwood, forming the 
summer pasturage of the sheep and cattle, upland pastures of 
wold or down for the sheep, and lowland pastures of undrained 
moors and carrs and ings for the cattle. One or two instances 
will show how vast were these common pastures, how widely 
separated were the hamlets, and how scanty was the popu- 
lation. 

The parish of Pickering now contains 32,700 acres, which 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 51 

agrees roughly with the Domesday measurement of the manor. 
In the time of Edward the Confessor the inclosures were less 
than 400 acres, and about 7,000 acres were tilled in open 
fields, leaving some 25,000 acres as moorland pasture. At 
the time of the Domesday Survey about 1,200 acres were in 
tillage, and there were twenty villans, with six ploughs between 
them, the lord having one plough. The population of this 
vast tract, twenty miles by six, cannot have been much more 
than 100. It is now one of the most sparsely peopled parts 
of Yorkshire, yet the population is over 5,000. 

The parish of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor contains 11,514 
acres. In the time of King Edward there were less than 
1,500 acres under plough, leaving 10,000 acres in moor and 
carr. At the time of the Survey about 600 acres only 
were tilled, there were eight villans and twelve bordarii with 
three ploughs, and the lord had half a plough. The popula- 
tion was about 100, and there was a church and a priest. 
The present population is over 2,000. 

These are extreme instances, where the soil was poor, and 
the wastes unusually extensive. As an average case we may 
take Heslerton, with 7,1 20 acres, of which about half were tilled 
in the time of King Edward, and about a fourth at the time of 
the Survey. In the adjacent township of Knapton there are 
2,889 acres. In King Edward's time twenty acres were 
inclosed, and 1,080 acres were tilled. In King William's time 
all was desolate : apparently there was not a single inhabitant. 

The arable was divided between the lord and the tenants 
of the Manor who held in villanage. The land was tilled by 
huge ploughs, normally drawn by eight oxen, yoked four 
abreast. When the soil was light the teams were somewhat 
smaller, con.sisting of as few as four oxen, yoked two and 
two. This was called a half plough. But where the land 
was heavy, as many as ten or even twelve oxen were yoked 
to each plough. A villan usually possessed one yoke of oxen, 



52 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

each plough being drawn by the associated teams of four 
villans. Land was plentiful, and it was rather the possession 
of oxen for tillage, than of land itself, which constituted 
wealth. Hence we understand why the system of taxation 
recorded in Domesday is based on the number of ploughs 
rather than on the number of acres. 

We must dismiss the notion of the modem English 
system of letting farms at fixed annual rents. There were 
no farms or farmers in our sense of the word, a farmer being 
originally a tenant who was bound to supply /eorm — food and 
entertainment — to the lord when he visited the manor. The 
occupation of a messuage, which descended from father to son 
on the payment of a fine or heriot, carried with it a customary 
right to pasturage for a certain number of oxen, sheep, and 
swine, and to the produce of a certain number of 'acres' in 
the arable fields. Rents were paid mainly in kind and by 
services. Manors were granted by the King in fee to his 
tenants in capite, chiefly the greater bamso who rendered 
military service in return. These barons sublet their lands to 
their knights, who kept a portion in their own hands, in 
demesne, as it is called, and let out the rest to the villans, the 
men of the vill or township, in fee — that is, on certain fixed 
conditions of tenure, usually that the lord should have a defined 
share of the produce : so many chaldrons of oats, so much 
malt and meal, the milk of so many cows, so much honey, so 
many hens and eggs, and so much comage, a commutation 
for beeves and sheep ; but the rents were chiefly paid in 
services, the tenants had to work so many days a week, 
generally two or three, with their oxen and ploughs, in tilling 
the lord's land, ploughing, harrowing, reaping, mowing, or 
leading stores, without payment The villans could not be 
dispossessed so long as they rendered the customary dues, 
the rent could not be raised, their rights and obligations 
passed, when it changed hands, with the land, of which they 
were, in fact, joint owners with the lord. 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 53 

As time went on these services were more and more com- 
muted into fixed money payments, but we still find survivals 
of these tenures, not only in copyholds, which mainly grew 
out of holdings in villanage, but in the existing tenures of the 
North of England, where, in addition to the money rent, the 
tenant is usually bound to furnish so many loads of straw, and 
so many days' service in carting for the landlord, with horses, 
wagons, and men. My own glebe, by immemorial usage, is 
let on these terms, the rent being paid partly in money, partly 
in kind, and partly in services. At the time of the Conquest 
the actual money rents, or scatpennies, as they were called, 
were usually either id. or 2d, an acre, or 4^. when no services 
were rendered. 

We gather from the Boldon Book of Durham and the 
Liber Niger of Peterborough that even the village artificers, 
such as the carpenter who made the woodwork of the ploughs 
and harrows, the smith who made and repaired the ironwork, 
the marshall who shod the horses, the lorimer who made the 
bits and stirrups, as well as the bailiff, the mason, the pounder, 
the shepherd, the neatherd, the hogwarden, and the beekeeper, 
were paid for the services they rendered to the lord or to the 
community, not in money, but by the produce of a certain 
number of strips of arable in the open fields, usually amount- 
ing to 8, 12, or 15 acres, which they held rent free, and which 
were tilled for them by the ploughs of the villans, in addition 
to which they often had a right to their thraves, a certain 
number of sheaves of corn from each plough. 

The villans had to grind their com at the lord's mill, and 
the miller had his multure ; he retained a certain proportion 
of the meal as his fee, and rendered a fixed payment in 
money or kind to the lord for the privilege. North country 
mills still grind on these terms : the miller keeps the bran, and 
makes no charge for grinding. 

When certain special services, called precations or boon 
services, were performed, as in hay time or harvest, the villans 



54 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

were entitled to an allowance of food called a corrody. The 
corrody was no very luxurious repast, if we may judge from 
the modern etymological descendant of the word, the North- 
umbrian * crowdy,' which denotes a sort of stirabout, consisting 
of oatmeal over which boiling water has been poured. 

The priest was paid for his services, like the other village 
officials, by a share in the produce of the land. We may thus 
obtain some light on the disputed origin of tithes, and even of 
glebe. He had his thraves, consisting of every tenth sheaf, 
but in some instances it would seem that the produce of every 
tenth or twelfth acre (a tenth either by the small or large 
hundred) was allotted to him. Thus the laws of Ethelred and 
of Egbert ordain that every Christian man shall pay his 
tithe justly, ' as the plough traverses the tenth acre.* Appa- 
rently the whole arable field was tilled by the villans, and the 
produce of every tenth acre strip belonged to the priest 
Ultimately, when the land came to be held in severalty, in- 
stead of in community, these tenth strips became the parson's 
freehold, and he had to till them with his own oxen. 

There are several townships in the East Riding in which 
the ancient glebe can be actually shown to have consisted, 
not only of an exact tenth of the whole Domesday arable, but 
of every tenth strip in the open fields, appropriated as ordained 
in the laws of Ethelred, the Church taking the produce of 
every tenth acre as the plough traversed the land. 

The accompanying map of the township of Burton Agnes 
indicates that the old glebe consisted of eighteen strips in the 
three fields, say twelve in the two fields which were in tillage 
at the same time. According to Domesday Book there were 
twelve carucates of arable,^ and therefore the parson had one 
stripout of each carucate, his tenth acre as the plough traversed 
it, according to the laws of Ethelred. But the glebe strips are 

' The glebe strips are interesting as fixing the size and position of some of the 
Domesday carucates. 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 



55 



Burton Agnes. 

1809. 




56 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

somewhat narrower than the others, because the others are 
eighths, each representing one oxgang, the work of one ox in 
the eight-ox plough, while the parson had not an eighth but 
a tenth in each ploughland. The actual measure of the 
arable is 999 ac. o r. 18 p., of which one-tenth would be 
99 ac 3 r. 26 p., whereas the eighteen strips of glebe only 
amount to 98 ac. 2 r. 20 p., falling short of the theoretical 
tenth by i^^ acre. This is accounted for by encroachments 
which are visible on the map. Some of the parson's neigh- 
bours do not seem to have ploughed quite fairly, thus gra- 
dually shaving off a part of some of the parson's strips. 

The map of the adjacent township of Haisthorpe gives a 
similar result. In the three arable fields there seem to have 
been nine strips of glebe, and a bit over, averaging six strips 
in the two fields tilled in any one year. Domesday assigns 
six carucates to Haisthorpe. Thus, as in Burton Agnes, the 
parson had one strip out of each carucate, or one-tenth of the 
whole arable. 

In other parishes, where the numeration was by the great 
hundred of six score, the priest had one twelfth of the arable. 
At Foxholes he had half a carucate out of six, and at Kirby 
Underdale four oxgangs out of forty-eight 

The churches were few and far between. In the East 
Riding only forty-eight are mentioned in Domesday, and 
these were chiefly on the lands of spiritual lords, the Bishops 
and the great Monasteries. 

The way in which the ministrations of the Church were 
frequently supplied is shown by the names of several Hundreds 
and Wapentakes, such as Staincross (Stone cross), Ewcross 
(Yew cross), Buckrose (Beech cross), and Osgodcross, which 
were originally preaching crosses where the people came to- 
gether at the great Church festivals, afterwards becoming the 
trysting-places for assemblage in arms when invasion threat- 
ened, and moots for the hundred-courts of civil jurisdiction. 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 57 

The social and economical conditions pictured in the 
foregoing pages have now completely passed away, but they 
have left behind not a few traces of their former existence — 
curious anomalies, manifest to all who have eyes to see them, 
which testify to the scheme of village life recorded, or tacitly 
assumed, in the Domesday Survey. I will take from my own 
neighbourhood, the East Riding of Yorkshire, a few examples 
of such survivals. 

Down almost to our own days a lai^e portion of the 
East Riding was uninclosed, presenting a living picture of its 
aspect at the time of the Norman Conquest. Only the tofts 
and crofts around the houses, and a few garths of meadow 
land were fenced, the wolds, the moors, and the arable, still 
lying uninclosed. 

The village had its 'outgang/ as it is still called, where 
the cattle of those who possessed rights of grazing were col- 
lected in the morning, ready to be driven out into the moor 
under charge of the neatherd. We have still, in my own 
parish of Settrington, the public cowherd who takes the 
villagers cows into the lanes, and who is paid rateably by the 
owners. The arable land was tilled in common, alternate strips 
being held by different owners, and separated only by turf 
balks. The position and extent of the open arable fields can 
frequently be determined by the old names which cling to 
them, East Field and West Field, High Field and Low Field, 
Far Field and Town End Field. 

These * Fields,' each containing several hundred acres, are 
normally either two or three in number. When there are two 
fields the Domesday entry usually indicates that the township 
was tilled on a two-year shift, but when there are three fields 
a three-year shift was adopted.* When we learn from Domes- 
day that there were two manors in a township, one cultivated 

* This is more fully discussed in the paper on *The Ploughland and the 
Plough.' 



58 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

on a two-year and the other on a three-year shift, we may 
expect to find traces of five arable fields. 

Rowlston in Holdemess is a good example of a two- 
field manor, and the present acreage, compared with the 
Domesday Survey, shows that upwards of 300 acres have 
been lost, the sea having encroached more than half a mile 
during the last 800 years. Burton Agnes, of which a map 
taken from a survey made in 1809 has already been given 
for another purpose, shows a not unfrequent arrangement of 
a three-field manor. We see the messuages of the villans 
and cottiers, each standing in its toft, with a narrow acre or 
half-acre croft behind it South of the main road was the 
moor, formerly open pasture for the cattle of the Community, 
but long since apportioned in ' deals ' or shares among the 
holders of oxgangs in the arable fields,^ one oxgate of moor, 
the pasture for an ox, going with each oxgang of arable, 
which represented the labour of the ox. North of the road is 
the ' terra ' or common arable, divided into three fields, East 
Field, Middle Field, ahd West Field, which were tilled in 
rotation, one field being ploughed in winter, another in Lent, 
while the third was left in fallow. The strips of tillage are 
divided by turf balks. They do not, as in many parishes, 
consist of acre strips, but are half oxgangs of about 7^ acres, 
two strips, one in each of the two fields tilled in any one year, 
constituting an oxgang. Some of the strips have been con- 
solidated, probably by exchange. The glebe strips are dis- 
tinguished by cross-hatching, and the oxgangs over which there 
was right of dower are stippled. The Hall of the Lord stands 
where it stood before the Conquest, but he seems to have in- 
closed his demesne land out of the common fields, whose ancient 
limits, however, are indicated by surviving rights of way. 

» In some parishes the pasture 'deals* were annually redistributed by lot. 
Each had a distinctive mark cut in the turf. After harvest corresponding marks 
were made on apples which were thrown into a tub of water. Each farmer dived 
for one, thus determining his deal of pasture for the succeeding year. 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 59 

The map represents Burton Agnes as it was before the 
inclosure, which took place about thirty years ago. There are 
many townships which lay in open fields within the memory 
of persons now alive. The last of them, Tottemhoe near 
Dunstable, is being inclosed this year. The death-blow to 
the system of open arable fields was given by the introduction 
of turnips, which made fallows needless, and introduced a 
more varied and profitable course of tillage. The consolidation 
of the scattered strips was mostly effected by the Inclosure 
Acts passed in the reign of George III. under the pressure of 
the high prices due to the great war. Hence, in the East 
Riding, the inclosures in the great majority of cases have been 
too recent to have effiaced the names of the ancient open 
fields, which remain in the everyday parlance of the villagers 
to designate large tracts of country. A portion of my own 
parish, containing about 1,000 acres, still goes by the name of 
West Field, though it is now divided into four farms, and 
contains scores of inclosures which might be called ' fields ' in 
the modern acceptation of the word. 

Even where the land has long been inclosed and divided 
into separate holdings it is instructive to ride across the 
country, and observe how indelibly impressed on the soil by 
the ancient plough are the marks of those very divisions of 
the land which are recorded in the Domesday Survey. Fre- 
quently the exact boundaries of the Domesday carucates and 
bovates can be traced. The ancient arable, consisting as a 
rule of the best land, because land was plentiful, has com- 
monly gone back to valuable pasture, inferior soils, which 
were formerly unreclaimed, being now taken into tillage. 
Hence, the land still lies visibly in ' run-rig,' the great rigs, 
lands, or selions, usually a furlong in length, and either a perch 
or two perches in breadth, remaining as they were left by the 
Domesday co-operative ploughs, often higher by two feet or 
more in the ridge than in the furrow, while here and there, at 



6o DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

regular intervals, may be discerned the traces of the flat un- 
ploughed balks, two furrows broad, left in turf, to separate 
and give access to the strips held by the several tenants of 
the manor. Even when the old arable still remains in tillage 
it is not impossible, as harvest time approaches, to detect by 
the varying colours of the ripening com the lines of the selions 
of the Domesday plough, now levelled by cross ploughing, but 
still traceable owing to the fact of the com growing more 
luxuriantly, and ripening more slowly in the deeper and richer 
soil which has filled the depressions between the ancient 
selions. 

Here we can behold the visible concrete acres and roods, 
and measure the actual furlongs, not, as in the tables of our 
arithmetic books, abstract quantities of so many square yards 
or so many linear feet, but strips of land of definite shape as 
well as of definite size. The shots or furlongs are forty perches 
or one- eighth of a mile in length — a furrow-long, as the name 
implies — and the acres are of the same length, and four perches 
broad, the shape and the extent of each acre being determined, 
not arbitrarily, but by natural conditions — the precise length 
by the length of the longest furrow that could be conve- 
niently ploughed before the oxen had to stop and rest, the 
longest furrow possible, because the turning of the plough 
constituted the severest part of the ploughman's labour, 
while the breadth of the acre depended on the number of 
furrows which formed the daily task of the villan and his 
oxen. Thus the acre represents one day's ploughing under 
the most convenient conditions as to size and shape, for which 
reason its length is ten times its breadth. 

And, as we gaze on these actual acres, roods, and furlongs, 
we notice that they are seldom straight, such as are delved by 
the modem two-horse plough, but, as is shown by the hedges 
which scrupulously follow the lines of the turf balks which 
separated the oxgangs of different owners, they lie in great 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 6i 

sweeping curves, shaped usually like a reversed capital J or 
capital S, the long narrow fields of the present farms thus 
perpetuating the graceful curves of the acres— curves which 
can only be due to the twist of the great eight-ox plough as 
the leading oxen were pulled round, in preparation for the 
turn, as they approached the end of the furlong, by the villan 
at the near side of the leading ox. I have examined thou- 
sands of these S-shaped rigs, and I find that they invariably 
swerve towards the left or near side, which seems to be ex- 
plained by the fact that the driver, who walked backwards, 
would most conveniently have directed the oxen by pulling 
them round by their head-gear with his right hand instead of 
with his left Thus the acre strips, which were originally 
straight, were bent round in the course of centuries of contin- 
uous ploughing, the curvature being increased every year by an 
inch or two of further deviation, till at length the extremities 
of the furlong became shifted several feet from their original 
position. This is curiously shown at Rowlston, where the rigs 
originally terminated at a small watercourse. A road ran paral- 
lel to this beck at a distance of a few feet The ends of the rigs 
could not be ploughed, and hence kept their original positions. 
At the time of the inclosure it was found that the owner of 
each rig possessed a few square yards of ground between the 
road and the beck, not opposite to the end of his rig, but four 
yards to the right of it, these little patches fixing the original 
position of the acres. In other townships, rigs which must 
have originally been continuous, belonged to different shots 
or furlongs, and have become discontinuous, the ends of the 
acres swerving to the right on one side of the headland, and 
to the left on the other, as shown in the figure on p. 55, the 
acres thus gradually receding from each other in the course 
. of years of continuous ploughing. 

When the land is nearly level the rigs are S-shaped, with 
a curve at each end, but when the land is on a slope the rigs 



62 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

are often J-shaped, with the curve at the bottom of the hill. 
If the hill was steep the plough went horizontally round it, 
forming those curious terraces on the hillsides which are called 
linces or reeans. These are very conspicuous when the land 
has gone back to grass, but when it has remained in tillage 
the modem cross ploughing has so nearly effaced them that 
they can only be seen in a favourable light, when the sun is 
low, and casts them into partial shadow. These terraces were 
formed, as Mr. Seebohm has shown, by the sod being turned 
downwards, the plough returning idle. 

The formation of the linces, the curvature of the acres, 
and the height attained by the rigs and headlands, impress 
the mind most forcibly with the great antiquity of the run- 
rig. Much of the land in run-rig went back to pasture at a 
remote date, either in Tudor times, when wool was found 
more profitable than com, or at the time of the Black Death, 
when many parishes were almost depopulated. The remote- 
ness of the date is shown by the alterations in the beds of 
streams. In my own parish a beck must have changed its 
course and cut through the rigs at a time when it flowed at a 
height of four feet above its present level. It has cut off the 
headlands from the rigs to which they belong, and since 
no new headlands have been formed, the stream must have 
changed its course at a time after the land had gone out of 
tillage. 

By noting the existence or absence of rigs and linces, it is 
easy to determine the limits of the ancient tillage. This is 
also indicated by the curvature of the hedges, which constantly 
follow the divisions of the oxgangs, mostly running along the 
balks which separated the ploughed strips of different owners. 
This is only the case with old closes ; in recent inclosures the 
hedges are straight, cutting across the curved rigs at various 
angles. In my own parish I can distinguish with certainty 
by the straightness or curvature of the hedges the fields 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 63 

which were inclosed before or after our Local Inclosure Act, 
which was passed in 1797. 

The direction of the country lanes is commonly deter- 
mined by the position and extent of the Domesday tillage. 
They usually follow the lines of the balks and headlands 
which separated and gave access to the furlongs or shots in 
the open arable fields, while the highways frequently skirt the 
division between the moorland and the ancient arable. Hence 
the roads meander hither and thither, taking curious rectan- 
gular turns as if round the squares of a chessboard, their 
directions being survivals of the boundaries of the several 
cultures in the open fields. That this is the true explanation 
of these twists is shown by the fact that the direction of the 
run-rig on one side of the lane is often at right angles to the 
direction on the other. 

There are also queer rights of way, leading no-whither, 
and now scarcely used except for exercising horses. Their 
origin is indicated by the fact that they commonly run at 
right angles to the rigs along mounds of turf, consider- 
ably higher than the adjacent land, proving that these rights 
of way are survivals of the headlands which, before the 
land was inclosed, served to give access to the intermixed 
strips of arable in the open fields. Very striking are these 
conspicuous headlands, long irregular mounds, where the 
great plough, with its team of eight oxen, rested and turned 
— the mysterious mounds, two or even three feet in height, 
being the accumulations formed duting successive ages by the 
scrapings from the coulter of the plough at the spots where the 
oxen were accustomed to rest and pant after having traced a 
furlong in the acre which constituted the day's toil, the Journey^ 
as in some counties it is still called in Norman-French — a 
phrase which corresponds to the Morgen, or morning's work, 
which is the name given to the acre by the German peasant. 

Thus we see how the features of the Domesday agriculture 



64 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

have been impressed upon the soil by the Domesday plough. 
We can still see and count the individual acres, and can detect 
the boundaries of the primitive oxgangs, while the strips of 
glebe, one in each carucate, show the acreage, and in some cases 
the actual position of the carucates recorded by the Domesday 
Commissioners.' 

If we ascend a hill, the Domesday map of the country 
lies spread before the eye. The curved hedges show the 
divisions of the oxgangs tilled by the villans ; here was the 
Domesday pratum, there was the pastura \ this was the Infield, 
yonder was the Outfield ; we look down upon the village, and 
see the Mill, and the Hall, and the Church, and the messuages 
of the villans, each with a long narrow two-acre strip of croft 
behind it, and the cots of the bordarii with their acre or half- 
acre tofts, the buildings retaining the same sites, and the 
crofls preserving the same boundaries as they had 800 years 
ago —a truly marvellous illustration of the immobile conser- 
vatism of English village life. 

On my own glebe I have garths and closes representing 
the very oxgangs which before the Conquest must have been 
held by my predecessors. The rigs are about two rods broad, 
and a furlong in length, being thus half-acres. A neighbouring 
Rector retains as his glebe the half-carucate of four oxgangs 
with which his church was originally endowed, and he also 
holds the four oxgates of pasture which maintained the four 
oxen who tilled his four oxgangs in the common arable fields. 
He also possesses an acre allotted to him in lieu of the right 
of tethering two horses on the balks and * marstalls ' of the 
common field, one horse, as an Elizabethan document recites, 
to each two oxgangs. In the next parish the inclosure took 
place by mutual consent of the freeholders and copyholders 

* In Burton Agnes the carucates average 60 acres in each field, which con- 
forms to the theoretical size of the carucate, as stated by Fleta, who wrote in the 
reign of Edward I. 



DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 65 

more than three hundred years ago, and the names of the com- 
mon fields, East Field, Middle Field, and West Field, preserved 
in ancient documents, are now forgotten, but a right of way 
called the East Balk still remains. It is the East balk of 
the West Field, a long ridge of turf representing the headlands 
dividing the West Field from the Middle Field, as is shown 
by the fact that the rigs on one side run north and south, and 
on the other side east and west 

In my own parish there are several field names of historic 
interest. A paddock called Mill Garth preserves the memory 
of one of the two Domesday Mills, and a garden which goes 
by the name of the Chapel Garth shows the site of a pre- 
Reformation Chapelry. A meadow which bears the name of 
Kirk Hill marks the position of the church mentioned in 
Domesday, and though this church was pulled down more 
than seven centuries ago, the name still holds in its tei\acious 
grasp the memory of the ancient sit?. The cruciform trench 
which marks the position of the nave and transepts shows it 
was only a tiny edifice, though amply sufficient for the needs 
of the lord, the two millers, the nine sokemen, the twelve 
villans, and the nine cottiers, whom it served. 

Another field, called Gallows Hill, formerly a part of the 
open wold, marks the conspicuous spot, visible to all the 
country round, where malefactors met their doom, and I still 
pay year by year the sum of 5^". 8d, to the legal represen- 
tatives of the Provost of St. John of Beverley for his services 
in correcting the villans of my parish. Close to Kirk Hill, 
where stood the Domesday church, is a farmhouse called 
Belmanoir, which marks the spot where the Norman lord had 
his Hall, removed, not long after the Conquest, together with 
the church, to a more sheltered site. In this hall the grand- 
sons of Thorbrand v/ere slain in 1073 as they sat feasting, by 
order of Earl Waltheof, in satisfaction of an ancient blood 
feud. Belmanoir Farm is part of a tract of several hundred 

VOL. I. F 



66 DOMESDAY SURVIVALS 

acres, now divided into numerous inclosures, which goes by 
the name of the ' Hall Field/ It represents the demesne land 
of the lord, tilled by his four ploughs and the oxen of his 
villans. It may be noted that one mill belonged to the lord, 
and the other collectively to the sokemen, who were thus 
free from paying multure to the lord. 

The township consisted of two Domesday manors, Buck- 
ton and Settrington. The name of the first is only preserved 
by a meadow called Buckton Holms, near the site of the old 
church and hall. Before the Conquest, both manors were 
held by Thorbrand, a man of Scandinavian race, as his name, 
'the sword of Thor,' plainly indicates. When Domesday 
was compiled his twelve broad manors had passed to another 
full-blooded Northman, Berengar de Todeni (Thosney on the 
Seine), a descendant of Rolf Gangr, and nephew of Ralph de 
Todeni, the hereditary standard-bearer of Normandy, who re- 
fused to bear the consecrated standard at Senlac, pleading 
that on that bloody day there were more doughty deeds for 
him to do. Berengar's lands afterwards passed away to a 
younger branch of the Bigods, Earls of Norfolk, whose descen- 
dant, five centuries later, a zealot for the faith of his forefathers, 
planned the Pilgrimage of Grace, and perished on the scaffold. 

I have tried to draw a picture of old English life, more 
especially with reference to the Domesday Survivals, in a 
single Yorkshire parish and its neighbourhood. I hope I may 
induce others to attempt the same task for their own parishes. 
The work of tracing out the details of the Domesday record 
on the spot, and of noting the. survivals of the ancient agri- 
cultural communities, will be found to add a world of interest 
to every country walk, while independent investigations by 
persons possessed of local knowledge can hardly fail to throw 
fresh light on a book which forms one of our most precious 
national possessions, a unique treasure, the like of which no 
other land can boast 



By Canon ISAAC TAYLOR, M.A., LL.a, Litt. D. 

It is frequently asserted or assumed that the Wapentake was 
merely the Hundred under a Danish name. Thus Sir Henry 
Ellis ^ asserts that ' the Wapentake is synonymous with the 
Hundred ' ; Professor Skeat' says it was 'a subdivision of a 
shire in the Danish parts of England, answering to the Hun- 
dred in other parts/ and even so cautious a writer as Bishop 
Stubbs * states that * the Wapentake in all respects of adminis- 
tration answers directly to the Hundred.' These assertions 
are supported by a statement in the Laws of Edward the 
Confessor, ' quod Angli vocant Hundredum supradicti comi- 
tatus [i.e. York, Lincoln, Notts, Leicester, and part of North- 
ants] vocant Wapentachium.' 

It is true that some of the Danish shires are now divided 
into Wapentakes and not into Hundreds, and it is also true 
that in some counties the divisions which are called Wapen- 
takes in Domesday now bear the name of Hundreds, but 
the equivalence of the Hundred and the Wapentake has, I 
think, been taken for granted without due examination of the 
evidence which Domesday supplies. 

It seems to be assumed that the difference is mainly a 

' Ellis, Introduction to Domesday ^ p. Ivii. 
' Skeat, EtymoL Diet, s. ▼. Wapentake. 
' Stubbs, Constitutional History^ vol. i. p. 99. 

F2 



68 WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 

difTerence of name, and that after the Danish Conquest the 
Danish appellation was simply substituted for the other in the 
Danish shires. I believe, however, that I shall be able to 
prove that there was a fundamental difference between the 
Hundred and the Wapentake, that they co-existed for a time, 
that they denoted areas of different extent, and probably 
served distinct constitutional purposes. 

When the Domesday Survey was taken the change from 
Hundreds to Wapentakes had been already effected over a 
great part of the Danish area. In the North and West Ridings 
of Yorkshire the Domesday Wapentakes and the modem 
Wapentakes practically coincide, and there is no mention of 
Hundreds. The East Riding is now divided into Wapen- 
takes, whereas in Domesday the earlier division into Hun- 
dreds, which has now wholly faded out of memory, is retained, 
and there is no hint of the present division into Wapentakes. 
At the time of the next record, which is Kirby's Inquest, 
taken two hundred years later, in the 13th Edward I. (1284- 
1285), the Domesday Hundreds of the East Riding have 
disappeared, and we find the modem division into Wapentakes 
has been effected. 

Thus in two of the Yorkshire Ridings we find only 
Wapentakes in Domesday ; the transformation is already 
complete. In the third Riding we find only Hundreds ; the 
transformation has not yet commenced. In the other Danish 
shires, Nottingham, Derby, Rutland, and Lincoln, Domesday 
records the existence both of Hundreds and of Wapentakes, 
and we are able to detect the transformation in various stages 
of progress, more or less advanced. 

In Nottinghamshire, Domesday Book mentions three 
H undreds and eight Wapentakes. Though these Wapentakes 
are now usually called Hundreds they are really Wapentakes : 
there has only been a change of name. 

In Derbyshire, the divisions called Wapentakes in Domes- 



WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 69 

day are now, as m Notts, called Hundreds, but in one case 
the old name of Wapentake is still retained. It may also be 
noted that the Hundred of Salle is mentioned in Domesday 
as a subdivision of the Wapentake (now called the Hundred) 
of Morlestone. 

In Rutland, in like manner, Domesday mentions Hundreds 
as subdivisions of Wapentakes, and in Lincoln we find men- 
tion not only of Wapentakes, which seem to agree with the 
modem Wapentakes of that county, but also of numerous 
Hundreds which appear to be divisions smaller than, and 
subordinate to, the Wapentakes. 

In the other counties, such as Bucks, the name Wapentake 
is not found, but the modern Hundreds differ in number and 
extent from the Domesday Hundreds, and seem to agree in 
everything but in name with the Wapentakes of the purely 
Danish counties. Thus there was a reorganisation of many 
of the counties, the new administrative units receiving a 
Danish name in the Danish districts and retaining the old 
name elsewhere. 

It may be admitted that in modem times Hundreds and 
Wapentakes have been confused, and that the name Hundred 
has been applied to Wapentakes ; but I do not find any evi- 
dence that a Hundred was ever called a Wapentake, still less 
that the words were synonyms as Sir H. Ellis asserts, or that 
they were names given by different races to identical terri- 
torial divisions. On the other hand, I believe it can be shown 
that they differed in extent, and probably also in their origin 
and their use. 

The historical significance of the Hundred has been much 
disputed. It has been held to denote the district originally 
settled by a hundred warriors, or the district which afterwards 
fumished a hundred warriors to the fyrth, or that it contained 
a hundred hides, or that it was occupied by a hundred free 
families. But we must not assume that the Hundred in 



70 WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 

Kent was the same thing as the Hundred in Cornwall, or that 
the earlier and later Hundreds were identical divisions. 

There is reason to believe that the invading host was 
organised in companies of a hundred warriors, and that the 
chief divided the conquered lands according to the organisa- 
tion of the host, each division receiving a definite share of 
the conquered territory. The size of the Hundred would 
thus depend on the numbers of the host, and the extent of 
land available for division. We may thus account for the 
minuteness of the Hundreds in those districts where the 
English first established a footing on our shores, and their 
vast size in the regions which were overrun at a later stage 
of the Conquest. The primitive Hundred would thus be the 
territory shared among the survivors of the company of a 
hundred invaders, and this division would be normally occu- 
pied by a hundred free families, each holding a hide, and 
collectively furnishing a hundred warriors for defence, and a 
hundred judges for the p^us. But the division would be 
rough rather than exact, even at first, and with the growth 
of population would soon become merely an historical sur- 
vival, as was plainly the case in Thanet. 

The origin of the Wapentake is manifestly much later, and 
not lost, like that of the Hundred, in the dim mists of history. 
It is known only in the Danish shires of England, and the 
name comes undoubtedly from a Scandinavian source. The 
old Norse vdpna is the genitive plural of vdpn^ a ' weapon,' 
and taka means to ' grasp,' and also to ' touch.' Hence the 
Norse vdpnatak means probably the * touching of weapons.' 
We may compare it with the 'clash of arms ' to which Tacitus 
refers in the 'Germania' when he tells us that in the assemblies 
of the Teutonic warriors, in order to signify assent to any 
proposal, the armed warriors struck their spears together — 
frameas concutiunt The practice is more fully explained in 
the Laws of Edward the Confessor, whence we learn that 



WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 71 

when a new chief of the Wapentake was appointed, the other 
chiefs met him at the usual place of assembly — doubtless at 
the Thing — ^when he dismounted from his horse and held his 
spear erect, while the other chiefs touched his spear with 
theirs, in token of fealty. 

It would thus appear that the Hundred was the old mili- 
tary and judicial organisation of the Saxon and Anglian 
settlers, while the Wapentake was a new, and, at first, con- 
current federation introduced by the Scandinavian conquerors. 

It seems probable that in the Danish shires the Hundred- 
men, who had the right to attend the Hundred Moot, had 
sunk into the position of villans, while their lords assembled 
at the Thing held in every Wapentake. The Hundred 
Moots may have continued to meet for civil purposes, though 
they were superseded for purposes of military defence by the 
Wapentakes. Thus the Hundreds became subordinate to the 
Wapentakes, which gradually replaced them for all purposes. 

We have seen that in Derbyshire, Rutland, and Lincoln, 
Hundreds are mentioned in Domesday as subordinate divi- 
sions of Wapentakes. The Domesday returns for these 
counties do not, however, enable us to ascertain with any 
precision the relation of the Hundreds to the Wapentakes. 
But the way in which the Domesday of the East Riding of 
Yorkshire is indexed affords a means of determining the 
precise nature of this relation. In the Yorkshire Domesday, 
as in other counties, the returns are given under the several 
tenants in capitiy but at the end of the return the results are 
recapitulated under the Wapentakes in the North and West 
Ridings, and in the East Riding under the Hundreds. This 
index enables us to ascertain the precise extent of each of 
these Hundreds, so as to make it possible to construct an exact 
map of the East Riding as it was at the time of the Survey. 
By inserting on such a map of the Domesday Hundreds the 
boundaries of the Wapentakes, given in Kirby's Inquest, as 



72 WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 

they existed in the reign of Edward I., we arrive at a very 
curious result 

The rule seems to have been that three of the old Hundreds 
were combined to constitute a Wapentake. 

The North-Eastem half of the Riding contained nine 
Hundreds, which were re-arranged into three Wapentakes. 

The three Domesday Hundreds of Turbar, Huntou, and 
Burton, are practically identical with the later Wapentake of 
Dickering. The three Domesday Hundreds of Toreshou, 
Scard, and Hacle, form the Wapentake of Buckrose, while the 
Wapentake of Holderness is made up of the three Hundreds 
of North, South, and Middle Holderness. 

The South- Western half of the Riding also comprised nine 
Domesday Hundreds, but the symmetry of the new division 
into Wapentakes is complicated by the fact that about a 
third of the townships were comprised in the great ecclesias- 
tical Liberties of St. Peter of York, St John of Beverley, and 
Howdenshire, the fee of St Cuthbert of Durham. 

The Wapentake of Ouse and Derwent was constituted 
out of those townships of four of the old Hundreds which were 
cut off from the rest by the Lower Derwent, and the Wapentake 
of Harthill included the remaining townships which were not 
in the great ecclesiastical Liberties. There was a good deal of 
cross-division, but, roughly speaking, we may say that the nine 
Southern Hundreds were re-organised, like the nine Northern 
Hundreds, into three divisions : the Wapentake of Ouse and 
Derwent, the Wapentake of Harthill, and the Liberties. 

The re-arrangement of the eighteen Domesday Hundreds 
into the six Edwardian Wapentakes and Liberties, may be 
tabulated as follows : 

New Wa^penukes Hundreds 

I. Turbar 
I. Dickering . , , 2. Huntou 

3. Burton 



WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 



73 





New Wapentakes 




riuncureds 






I. 


Toreshou 


II. 


Buckrose . 


3. 


Scard 






3- 


Hacle 






I. 


North Hundred 


III. 


Holderness . 


2. 


Middle Hundred 






3- 


South Hundred 






/I. 


Hessle 


IV. 


HarthiU . 


3. 


Welton 






3- 


DriiSeld 






4. 


Howden 


V. 


The Liberties , ,i 


5. 


Weighton 






6. 


Warter 






7. 


Cave 


VI. 


Ouse and Derwent 


8. 


Sneculfcros 



^9- Pocklington 

The important point is that the re-arrangement was by 
threes. Three Hundreds were combined to constitute a 
Wapentake. 

So far as the Domesday Record makes it possible to form 
an opinion, the division into Wapentakes was effected, in 
other counties, by the same rule of three, three Hundreds 
being combined to form a Wapentake, as in the East Riding 
of York. 

Other counties are not indexed in the same way as York, 
and hence it is difficult to ascertain so precisely the corre- 
spondence of the areds, and the results are therefore less 
definite. 

In the Lincoln Domesday, Hundreds and Wapentakes are 
only mentioned incidentally, and not systematically. In the 
whole county twenty-eight Wapentakes are named, and there- 
fore, if the East Riding rule held good, we should expect to 
find eighty-four Hundreds, which is precisely the number of 
those that are named. In the case of four of the Lincoln 
Wapentakes, moreover, it is possible to discover from Domes- 



74 WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 

day the names of the three Hundreds of which they were 
severally composed. 

Leicester was one of the Danish shires, and in Domesday 
it is divided into Wapentakes, no mention being made of 
Hundreds. These Domesday Wapentakes are now called 
Hundreds, but the six modem Hundreds are practically 
identical with the six Domesday Wapentakes. There is no 
trace of any older Hundreds by the union of which the 
Domesday Wapentakes were constituted, but the extent of 
the modern Hundreds plainly indicates that each of them 
consisted of three primitive Hundreds. 

The average number of square miles in each of the six 
modem Hundreds is 136, whereas in other counties the average 
number of square miles in each Hundred is as follows. 

Square miles 

Sussex 23 

Kent 24 

Dorset 26 

Lincoln 31 

Northampton -34 

But if each of the six Domesday Wapentakes or of the 
six modem Hundreds in Leicestershire was made up of three 
older Hundreds, the area of each would be only forty-five 
square miles instead of 136. Manifestly, though no Leicester 
Hundreds are named in Domesday, they must at one time 
have existed, and must have been at least three times as 
numerous as the Wapentakes. The same reasoning applies 
to Nottingham, also a Danish shire. In Domesday the 
Hundreds had not disappeared so completely as in Leicester- 
shire, since eight Wapentakes and three Hundreds are men- 
tioned. The average area of each Wapentake would be ninety- 
three square miles ; but on the supposition that each Wapen- 
take represented three older Hundreds the average area of 
these Hundreds would be thirty-one square miles, precisely the 



WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 



75 



same as the average area of the Hundreds in the adjoining 
county of Lincoln. 

Both in Notts and Leicester the Domesday Wapentakes 
now bear the name of Hundreds, probably from assimilation 
to the names of the subdivisions of neighbouring shires. The 
same seems to have taken place in Bucks, in which county 
there has been a combination by threes, three of the old 
Hundreds constituting one modem Hundred. The eighteen 
Domesday Hundreds are now combined into six modern 
divisions, four of which, each containing three old Hundreds, 
are now simply called Hundreds, while in the other two there 
is a survival of the original arrangement — ^three of the old 
Hundreds being called collectively the Chiltem Hundreds, 
and three others are called collectively the Aylesbury 
Hundreds. 

The way in which the eighteen Domesday Hundreds were 
combined in threes is shown in the following table. 



Domesday Hundreds 

Rouelai 
Stodfald . 
Lamua 
Bonestou . 
Sigelai 
Moleslou . 
Elesberie . 
Stanes 
Riseberge . 
Coteslau . 
Mureslai . 
Erlai. 
Essedene . 
Votesdone 
Tichessele . 
Dustenburgh 
Stoches 
Bumham . 



Modern Hundreds 



Buckingham Hundred 

Newport Hundred 

The three Hundreds of Ayles- 
bury 

ICottesloe Hundred 



Ashendon Hundred 



The Chiltem Hundreds 



i8 



76 WAPENTAKES AND HUNDREDS 

It is perhaps not altogether impossible to suggest an 
explanation of this combination of three of the primitive 
Hundreds into the new divisions which in all the Danish 
shires were originally called Wapentakes, and which in York 
and Lincoln still retain that appellation, though elsewhere 
the name of Hundreds has been resumed. 

The Wapentake seems to have been the unit on which the 
navipUHo or shipmoney was levied. We learn from the Saxon 
Chronicle that in 1008 Ethelred ordered that a ship should 
be furnished by every three hundred hides, and Edgar's 
charter to the Bishop of Worcester directed that every three 
Hundreds should furnish one scypfylled or navipletio, from 
which Bishop Stubbs infers * that every three Hundreds were 
liable to be called on to furnish one ship/' Hence the 
Wapentake, containing three old Hundreds, each of a hundred 
hideSy was the unit of assessment for the naval defence, just 
as the old Hundreds had been the units for the military defence 
of the kingdom. 

Thus, instead of the Wapentakes of the Danish shires 
* answering,' as has been affirmed, to the Hundreds of the 
Saxon counties, it would appear that they were districts of 
three times the extent, probably constituted for a different 
constitutional purpose, and for a time co-existent with the 
associated Hundreds of which they were composed. Bishop 
Stubbs ' also affirms of the Wapentake that * no attempt can 
be made to account for its origin on the principle of sym- 
metrical division.' If, however, the foregoing argument is 
correct, we may conclude that it was a thoroughly symmetrical 
division, consisting of three older Hundreds, and in all pro- 
bability containing three hundred primitive hides. 

> Stubbs, Const, Hist. vol. i. p. 105. « Ibid, p. 99. 



©amjeC^ anb (^ Jtnance of 
®ome0ba^« 

By J. HORACE ROUND, M.A, 

' The inseparable connection there is between the Domesday 
Survey and Danegeld will induce your lordship and this 
learned body to excuse the trouble I give you of this second 
paper.' With these words Mr. Carteret Webb, a hundred 
and thirty years ago, prefaced the paper he read before the 
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, entitled ' A short Ac- 
count of Danegeld, with some further Particulars relating to 
William the Conqueror's Survey.' It is difficult to speak too 
highly of this production, considering the date at which it was 
composed. Many years were yet to elapse before the print- 
ing of Domesday was even begun. Chronicles were mostly 
in MS., and historical evidences largely inaccessible as com- 
pared with the condition of things to-day. Yet, allowing for 
the fact that the criticism of authorities was a study as 
yet in its infancy, Mr. Webb's essay is a marvellous piece of 
careful and conscientious work. For my part, I gladly acknow- 
ledge how useful I have found it for my purpose. 

As an instance of Mr. Webb's ability and acumen, you 
will allow me, I hope, to call attention to the case of the now 
famous transcript of the Cambridgeshire Inquisitions. Our 
learned coadjutor, Mr. de Gray Birch, who has done so much to 



78 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

encourage the study of MS. authorities, has informed us that 
the credit of discovering the transcript {tentp. Henry II.) of 
the origfinal Domesday returns for Cambridgeshire • is due to 
Mr. Hamilton of the British Museum, by whom they were 
given to the world in 1876. Now on turning to Mr. Webb's 
Danegeld essay, we learn that they were duly discovered by 
him a hundred and twenty ^ears before the above date. By 
him the discovery was thus announced : 

In searching for the Liber Eiiensis I have had the good fortune to 
discover jn the Cotton library a MS. copy of the inquisition of the 
jury, containing their survey for most of the hundreds in Cambridge- 
shire. This MS. is written on vellum in double columns and on 
both sides of the page. It is bound up with the Liber Eiiensis^ and 
begins at p. 76 a and ends at p. 113. It is written in a very fair but 
ancient character, not coeval with the Survey, but of about the time 
of Henry II. It was given by Mr. Arthur Agard to Sir Robert 
Cotton, and is marked Tiberius A. VI. 4. Your lordship and the 
Society will be of opinion that this is a discovery of importance, and 
what had escaped the observation of Sir H. Spelman, Mr. Selden, 
and our other antiquarians. A part of this valuable morsel of antiquity 
is already transcribed, and in a few weeks I hope to be able to com- 
municate the whole of it to the Society (p. 26). 

All honour, then, to Mr Webb for his discovery. Palmam 
qui meruit ferat ! 

You will agree with me that it is much to be regretted that 
Mr. Freeman, in his remarks on Danegeld, should have in- 
accurately assigned this essay to Pegge, and so have deprived 
Mr. Webb of the credit due to him for his labours, besides 
making it difficult, of course, for his readers to identify the 
essay he is referring to. Here I may note that Mr. Freeman 
bears witness no less emphatically than Mr. Webb to ' the in- 
separable connection ' between the Danegeld and the Survey. 
• The payment and non-payment of the geld,' he writes, ' is a 
matter which appears on every page of the Survey ; and it is 
perhaps not too much to say that the formal immediate 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 79 

cause of making the Survey was to secure its full and fair as- 
sessment' * 

And here I may perhaps be allowed to express a feeling 
which I think will be shared by all present — namely, that of 
unfeigned regret that one who has done so much to call 
attention to the importance of the Domesday Survey, who 
has described it as ' one of the main sources ' of his work on 
the Norman Conquest, and who declares that for him ' the 
Survey has a fascination which cannot be put into words,' 
should not have honoured us with his presence on this historic 
occasion, when we are striving to gratify his ardent wish for 
more light on the Great Record, and so enable him to improve 
and perfect the monumental work of his life. 

Mr. Webb commences his valuable essay by drawing a 
distinction between what he terms tributary and stipendiary 
Danegeld. The distinction is, I think, a useful one. By 
tributary Danegeld he means that tribute by which the Danes 
were bought off, the payment of which was a practice that had 
begun on a more or less local scale long before the year 991, 
to which is assigned its first adoption by the king and the 
nation as a whole. It should be carefully noticed that no 
allusion is made to these tributary pa3nnents in the references 
to Dan^eld in the Leges Edwardi^ the Leges Henrici^ and the 
Dialogus. The ' stipendiary ' Danegeld, as Mr. Webb terms 
it, had its origin in 1012, when the Danes having for the last 
time been bought off by a sum of money, Thurkill, with five- 
and-forty ships, entered the English service, and was taken 
into English pay. That pay, the * stipendiary ' Danegeld, is the 
first payment recognised as Danegeld by the Leges Edwardi, 
the Leges Henrici^ and the Dialogus, I need not trouble you 
with the passages, as they are all quoted by Mr. Freeman.* 

The successive references to this 'geld ' in the. Chronicles 
are carefully worked out by Mr. Webb, and also given by 

• Norm, Conq, v. 4. • Ibid. vol. ii. (Appendix). 



8o DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

Mr. Freeman. I need not therefore repeat them. But I 
would call your attention to the remarkable documents bear- 
ing upon this subject which are contained in Heming's 
Cartulary. In another paper ' I have called attention to Mr. 
Freeman's treatment of these invaluable records. Mr. Webb, 
who not in this alone appears to distinct advantage, was 
fully alive to their value. Take for instance the reign of Cnut 
and the allusion to his geld ('vectigal importabile ') in 1018, 
or to the earlier exactions of Sw^en (1013) 'cum maximum 
et fere importabile tributum tota Anglia reddere cogeretur. 
Ob hujus itaque tam gravis tributi exactionem, omnia fere or- 
namenta hujus ecclesie distracta sunt, tabule altaris, argento 
et auro parate, spoliate sunt, textus exomati, calices con- 
fracti, cruces conflate, ad ultimum etiam terre et villule pecu- 
niis ' distracte sunt * (1. 268). Compare this pass^e with the 
admission in Domesday that Norwich ' partim [vastata erat] 
propter geltum regis,' and see how strangely the earlier com- 
plaint is echoed in this grim entry. 

But we must now hurry on towards the Survey. It is the 
general belief that Edward the Confessor abolished the im- 
position of Danegeld in 1052, and that it was reimposed by 
William the Conqueror in 1083-4. On this point our supreme 
authority, Dr. Stubbs, tells us that Danegeld — ^'originally 
levied as tribute to the Danes, though it had been continued 
long after the occasion for it had ceased — had been abolished 
by Edward the Confessor. The Conqueror . . . imposed the 
Danegeld anew. In A.D. 1084 he demanded a sum of six shil- 
lings from every hide of land, three times the old rate.' As 
against this view we have the statement of the Dialogus^ here 
clearly of an ex parte character, that the Danegeld, down to the 
Conquest, remained an annual tax, but that the admirable go- 
vernment of the Conqueror after a time enabled him to make it 

* * An early Reference to Domesday,' which will appear in Vol. II.— Ed. 
^ /./. their live stock. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 8i 

an occasional one. The subject is at first sight an obscure 
one, and Dr. Gneist, holding that Mn Freeman and Dr. Stubbs, 
while admitting the difficulty, have failed to solve it,> propounds 
a view which, so far as I can see, makes the question more 
obscure than ever. Keeping, however, to contemporary au- 
thorities, and to the plain facts of the case, I think we may be 
able to see our way without any great effort It is admitted 
on all hands that Edward the Confessor, about the year 105 1 
(it is as well, where possible, before the Conquest, not to in- 
sist too closely on exact dates) abolished a tax which we are 
fortunately informed was the tax which his father had first 
imposed some eight-and-thirty years before. The tax abo- 
lished was clearly therefore what Mr. Webb, as I have said, de- 
scribed as the stipendiary Danegeld, and that which was alone 
referred to as Danegeld by the writers of the next century. 
Moreover, the cause of the abolition is not far to seek. The 
government had paid off, shortly before, the last of the Danish 
ships retained in English pay. And the Danegeld being ' ex- 
traordinary revenue ' (to quote the expression of Dr. Stubbs), 
originally raised to meet an emergency and subsequently 
continued to provide for a special military expedient, had no 
longer a raison diire. The government would of course be loth 
to part with it, but the feelings of the taxpayer are well ex- 
pressed later on by Henry of Huntingdon, whose attitude is 
curiously suggestive of that of payers of income-tax in our 
own day when they complain that what was meant for an 
emeigency-tax has become a normal source of revenue. 

Hoc autem malum usque in hodiemum diem duravit, et diu, nisi 
Dei pietas subvenit, durabit. Regibus namque nostris modo per- 
solvitur ex consuetudine^ quod Danis persolvebatur ex inefifabili 
terrore. 

I think that insufficient attention has been paid to the con- 

» Const Hist, i. 213. 

* This expression < ex consuetudine * should be noted. 

VOL. I. G 



82 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

temporary statements of Henry of Huntingdon with reference 
to payment of Danegeld, and I propose therefore to notice 
them again. 

The cause then, I say, is not far to seek, which led to the 
abolition of the impost, and the curious legend that the pious 
king abolished it in consequence of seeing the devil leaping 
for joy on the gathered treasure, does but witness to the pecu- 
liar horror with which the Danegeld was regarded. Dr. Stubbs 
suggests that the unpopularity of the tax was due to its being 
that ' on which the sheriffs made their greatest profit' * I 
cannot here agree with him. I attribute it on the one hand 
to the odious and humiliating associations of the impost 
and of its origin, and, on the other, to that sturdy instinctive 
aversion to direct taxation which seems to have been a feature 
in the national character, which is by no means yet extinct 
among us, and which led under the later Plantagenets to the 
great constitutional cry, that the king should live * de suo * — 
of his own. 

Now there are three questions which arise as to the Dane- 
geld, all of them connected with the Domesday Survey. First, 
at what rate was it levied? Second, how often was it 
exacted ? Third, by what machinery was it raised ? 

As to the first of these we have, happily, evidence which, 
although limited in scope, is thoroughly direct and clear. 
Mr. Eyton writes: — 'The only instance we have met with 
of any gheld-rate of King Edward was at jd, a hide.* * When 
he thus wrote, he was, obviously, alluding to the passage in 
Domesday on the customs of Berkshire, of which more anon. 
I doubt if it is wise to draw conclusions, as both here and else- 
where Mr. Eyton has done, from a single and most probably 
an exceptional case. It will be safer to say that our direct 
evidence as to the rate of levy is as follows. 

In the winter of 1083-4 a Danegeld was levied at the 

' Cmst, Hist. i. 381. * Key to Domesday ^ p. 70. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 83 

rate of six shillings on the hide. From this date till the end 
of Henry the First's reign we have no direct record evidence ; 
but we have a statement in the so-called * Laws of Edward the 
Confessor' (section * De Danegeldo * ) that the Church enjoyed 
a special exemption. 

Usque ad tempora Willielmi regis junioris qui de baronibus totius 
Anglie auxilium petiit ad Normanniam retinendam de fratre suo, 
Roberto Normannorum comite, Jerusalem proficiscente. Concessum 
est ei, non lege statutum neque firmatum, sed habuit necessitatis 
causa ex unaquague hida quatuor solidos^ ecclesia non excepta, 
quorum dum fieret coUectio proclamabat sancta ecclesia libertatem 
suam reposcens, sed nihil profecit. 

If this statement stood by itself, its ex parte character, its 
description of this Danegeld as an ' auxilium,' and its occur- 
rence in a document of uncertain authority, needing external 
confirmation, would render it of small value, but I have found 
another and independent allusion to this same Danegeld, the 
more important because incidental. In the Cartulary of 
Abingdon (ii. 38), at the foot of a complaint ' de Raimbaldo 
milite,' we read : 

Praeterea et sequente anno vecHgcU quatuor soiidorum de hida^ 
patriotis cunctis nimium ferre ponderosum, in augmentum mali per 
Angliam illatum, quod de primo restabat forte consumendum 
miserianim incendio, id in subsequente penitus exhausit. Quare 
infra monasterii limina vasorum altaris diversorum argenteorum pro 
his plurima elata atque confracta ; forinsecus vero pecora abducta 
prae oculis abbatis et monachorum ministrorum vi regalium, et 
ab eis ad libitum cuncta distracta sunt. 

This description should be compared with that of Swegen's 
Danegeld (1013) by the monks of Worcester,' for the resem- 
blance is so curiously close that the later is almost a repetition 
of the very words of the earlier complaint. The point, how- 
ever, to observe is this. Here we have a levy of four shillings on 

* Supra^ p. 8a 

G a 



84 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

the hide, spoken of in both the * Laws ' and the Cartulary as 
an exceptional and grievous exaction, and attributed in the 
former to the exceptional necessity of providing the 10,000 
marks required for the loan to Robert (1096).* We cannot 
doubt that we have here to do with one and the same levy, 
and a comparison with the passage in Florence of Worcester 
describing how that sum was raised absolutely confirms this 
view: 

Indixit [rex] majoribus Angliae ut quisque illorum pro posse sibi 
pecuniam festinanter accommodaret Idcirco episcopi, abbates, abba- 
tissae, aurea et argentea ecclesiae ornamenta fregerunt, comites, 
barones, vicecomites, suos milites et villanos spoliavenint, et regi 
non modicam summam auri et argenti detulerunt (ii. 40). 

Lastly we have the witness of William of Malmesbury, 
who thus alludes to the raising of the tax, which necessitated 
the same sacrifices at Malmesbury as at Abingdon : ' 

Cum Willielraus Rex junior importabile tributum indixisset 
Angliae quo Normanniama fratre Roberto intendebat emere, Godefri- 
dus [Abbas], ut suam partem ex facili componeret, thesauros Ecclesias 
quos antiquonim cura coacervarat, foede distraxit, pessimorum usus 
consilio, quos nominare possem, si peccantium societas crimen 
alleviare posset magistri etc etc 

Thus, on the one hand, we may safely believe that a levy 
of four shillings on the hide actually took place in 1096 (that 
is, some twelve or thirteen years after the great levy of six 
shillings on the hide), and on the other, we obtain incidental 
confirmation of the authority, here at least, of the ' Laws of 
Edward the Confessor/ • 

■ Compare the exceptional measures lesorted to for raising the sum required 
for the ransom of Richard I. (ii93)* 

* D$ PotUificibus^ lib. v. 

* This levy of four shillings on the hide would appear to have remained un- 
noticed. It was clearly unknown to Mr. Freeman, who dwells fully on the 
episode ( William Rufus, i. 556-7), but does not quote among the authorities the 
three passages I have here given from the Cartulary of Abingdon, the Gesta 
Pontificum and the * Laws of Edward the Confessor.* 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 85 

The Danegeld next meets us in the Pipe Roll of 11 30, as 
levied at two shillings on the hide, and moreover as levied regu- 
larly as an annual tax. This is of special importance as confirm- 
ing the precise description of Henry of Huntingdon (relative to 
Stephen's accession) : ' Danegeldum, id est duos solidos ad 
hidam, quos antecessores sui accipere solebant singulis annis.' 
Thence we pass to the earliest Pipe Rolls of Henry H., in which 
it again figures as an annual levy of two shillings on the hide. 
Lastly we have the Dialogus de Scaccario (c. 1 177) in which it is 
described to have been originally levied at two shillings on the 
hide, to have been paid annually at the same rate down to the 
Norman Conquest, to have been at first paid similarly under 
the Conqueror, but, owing to the peace he secured for the land, 
to have been eventually changed by him into an occasional 
tax, and to have so continued since. All these statements 
in the Dialogus on the early history of the impost must, 
definite though they are, be looked upon with the gravest 
suspicion. In the first place, the writer, as Mr. Freeman 
observes, * forgot the remission of the Danegeld or Heregeld 
by Edward in 1040 \sic\ ' ^ — as a matter of fact Edward did 
not remit it till ten years later. Then he also forgot the great 
levy of six shillings on the hide, and he, further, asserted that 
the levy was but occasional under the Conqueror's successors, 
whereas, as soon as it meets us, it is, beyond dispute, as an 
established annual tax. I do not say that the mis-statements 
are wilful, but they are not contemporary evidence, and are 
demonstrably unworthy of credit. 

Glancing at the Leges Edwardi and the Leges Hettrici 
Primiy we find the Dan^eld described as a levy of a shilling 
on each hide. Dr. Gneist evidently, but somewhat strangely 
I think, relies upon this authority when he tells us that under 
the Anglo-Saxons ' the tax became finally fixed as Danegeld 
at twelve-pence for each hide.' ^ 

* Norm. Conq, vol. v. 883. « ConU, Hist, i. 35. 



86 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

I hope to show you later on how it may be possible to 
account for the origin of this statement in an error.* 

As to the rate at which Danegeld was levied, and indeed 
as to the subject in general, Mr. Freeman's statements are so 
wildly contradictory ' that I shall here refrain from discussing 
them, and shall turn to my second point — namely, how often 
was this tax exacted f 

On this point I find I have the misfortune to differ, not 
only from Mr. Freeman, which may not be surprising, but also 
from a far more eminent authority : I mean Dr. Stubbs himself. 
That great historian adopts, as we have seen, the generally 
received view that Danegeld was never once levied between 
the remission of the tax by Edward, about the year 105 1, and 
its reimposition by the Conqueror in the winter of 1083-4. 
To Mr. Freeman this view presents difficulties, for it would be 
strange, he urges, ' if no taxes at all for the support of war- 
like forces . . . were levied between 1051 and 1083. . . . 
Are we,* he proceeds, * to infer that the Housecarls were 
henceforth maintained out of the ordinary royal revenues, 
or, what seems more likely, that the tax now remitted related 
wholly to the fleet ? * 

These words occur in an Appendix on the subject of Here- 
geld and Danegeld, which I have read through honestly many 
times in the hope of discovering its drift, Mr. Freeman's 
hypothesis appears to be that the earlier or tributary Danegeld 
was alone entitled to that name, and that the stipendiary Dane- 
geld ought properly to be described as Her^eld. As a matter 
of fact, the accepted term for this impost was * geld ' (or, in Latin 
geldum regis — ^answering to our expression king's taxes), and it 
is an admitted fact that in the whole of Domesday the form 
Danegeld only once occurs. But, as Mr. Freeman observes, 

* Namely the payment of the two shilling tax in two half yearly instalments of 
one shilling each. 

* See my paper in the Antiquary for December 1886. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 87 

probably with justice, * there can be little doubt that the words 
which occur so often, geldum, geldare and the like, refer to it' 
To this I may add that the form * Danegeld ' comes strangely 
into use in the next century under Henry I. I do not know 
whether it has ever been suggested that this may have been 
due to the imposition, under him, of other gelds. But what 
I want to point out is that I do not think there is anything at 
all in this distinction between Heregeld and Danegeld. Here- 
geld occurs, I believe, only twice in the English Chronicle, once 
when the tax was remitted, and once under Harthacnut, on 
which occasion it figures in two of the four chronicles, not as 
Heregeld but merely as geld. Besides, the Danish Here, as 
as it is regularly termed in the chronicles, was essentially an 
amphibious force, so that there is nothing in the term Heregeld 
specially denotative of ships. 

My main contention, however, is this. While rejecting Mr. 
Freeman's eventual conviction that the *scot' which was 
levied subsequently to Domesday was in any sense a 
Danegeld at all, I hold, in opposition both to himself and to 
Dr. Stubbs, that true Danegelds were levied by the Conqueror 
more than once previous to the great levy of the winter of 
1083-4. I base this conclusion both on the evidence of the 
chroniclers, and on that of Domesday itself and its fellows. 

Let us take the chroniclers first Turning to the winter 
of 1066-7, we learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that 
the Conqueror, immediately after his coronation, ' laid on men 
a geld exceeding stiff.' Again, turning to the next winter, 
the close of 1067, we read that William ' sette micel gyld * 
on the poor people. Mr. Freeman has quoted both these 
passages without perceiving what they meant. Yet compare 
them with the 'mycel gyld' of 1083-4 (similarly, I want you 
to note, raised at midwinter), or again, with the * full geld ' of 
Cnut, or the 'strong gyld' of Harthacnut, and no doubt 
will, I think, be left on your minds, when you carefully collate 



88 DAMEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

the passages, that both the gelds here mentioned were Dane- 
gelds beyond a question. But happily Domesday itself bears 
witness that the geld of 1083-4 was by no means the first of 
the reign. Take for instance the Herefordshire entry of the 
manors which Earl William (i.e. Fitz Osbem) had granted to 
' King Mariadoc/ and which had passed to his son ' Grifin.' 
Here we read : ' Rex W. condonavit geldum r^ Mariadoc et 
postea filio ejus.' (King William remitted the geld to 
Mariadoc, and after him to his son Grifin.) How could he 
have remitted the geld, if no geld was levied (for, observe, this 
expression is quite different to the grant of perpetual exemp- 
tion — ' dedit quietas a geldo * &c.) ? Mr. Freeman, I may add, 
has quoted this passage, but without perceiving its bearing 
on the geld, nor do I agree with him in his identification of 
Grifin.' But now turn to the Inquisitio Geldi of 1083-4, and 
what are we to say of sudi entries as these } * Hie est inventa 
I faida que non reddidit geldum postquam W. rex habuit 
regnum' (this is at Warminster in Wilts); or again, *De 
dimidia hida non habuit rex gildum hoc anno* (this is in 
Dorset) ; or again, ' Pro dimidia hida . . . non habuit Rex 
hoc anno gildum suum ; ' or again, ' De his [viii] hidis non 
habet rex gildum suum de hoc anno! How can we reconcile 
such passages as these with the theory that this was the first 
year in which geld had been levied since the Conquest or, 

* Mr. Freeman's comment on the passage is thb : — ' I conceive that this is 
Meredydd the son of Bleddyn, who is mentioned in the Brut y Tyvrysogino, iioo, 
and his son Gruffyd in 1 1 13, p. 140. But if so, Meredydd was not dead at the 
time of the Survey. He must therefore have given some offence and lost his lands, 
though they were kept by his son * (iv. 679). That is to say, this identification 
presents chronological difficulties. But further, there is nothing to connect Earl 
William ( 1067- 107 1) with Meredydd ap Bleddyn. And thirdly,the form * Maria- 
doc * for Meredydd would seem to throw some suspicion on the accuracy of the 
Domesday text. If we could only suppose that this curious form is really a mistake 
for Caradoc (the son of Grufiyd), that name b that of the Welsh prince who 
leagued himself with Earl William in 1070 ; and that he should be granted lands 
by the Earl as a reward, should be favoured by the Conqueror, and should have 
a son named after his grandfather, would be all most natural circumstances. 



DANEGELD and the finance of DOMESDAY 89 

indeed, since the year 1051? Here then, surely, we have 
an important correction of the received view upon this 
subject. 

I now come to my third point ; by what machinery was 
the geld raised ? 

I shall here introduce you to an inquiry on a subject 
which I believe to be virgin soil. How and when was the 
Danegeld actually received by the collectors ? 

Let us begin by glancing at the passage in Domesday 
relating to the customs of Berkshire. Its first entry is this : 

Quando geldum dabatur tempore regis Edwardi communiter per 
totam Bercheschiram dabat hida in denarios et obolum ante NataU 
Domini et tantundem ad Pentecosten, 

Observe here (i) that the geld was paid in two instalments, 
(2) that these instalments were equal, (3) that they were paid 
at Christmas and^ Whitsuntide. Now let us turn to another 
record, the Leges Henrid Primi, There we read, in the 
section on Danegeld, <si ad terminos non reddatur, wita 
cmendatur.' 

Observe the term 'wita.' This 'wita,' or fine for non- 
payment of geld when it was due, had a special name. It 
was known as 'gyldwite' and so figures in the famous 
Oswaldslawe charter of Edgar, in connection with ' Oferhymes * 
as one of the pleas of the crown there made over to the 
Bishopric. Of course, I introduce this as an illustration 
only, irrespective of the genuineness of the charter. It will 
be found that this 'gyldwite' as a plea of the crown will 
throw light on an obscure passage in the Survey (i. 30) relat- 
ing to some houses in Guildford, with which the Leges Henrici 
ought to be compared, and that it also explains the great, 
and otherwise inexplicable, care with which every case of 
remissness in the payment of geld is entered. in the Inquisitio 
Geldi. There is a curious statement in Heming's Cartulary 
(i. 278) that, under Cnut, an order was made that anyone 



90 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

four days in arrear with his payment of taxes forfeited ipso 
facto his land, which then passed to the first person who came 
forward and paid the tax. It is possible that the later fine 
or ' wita ' may represent a commutation for the forfeiture, in 
the same way that; as I have pointed out, the fine still 
inflicted for refusal of municipal of&ce was originally a com- 
mutation for that forfeiture of the freedom which was in early 
times the penalty for the offence. But I would call your 
attention to the word 'terminos/ employed in the Leges 
Henrici, specially to its plural form. What were these 
'termini*? To answer this we must have recourse to the 
Inquisitio Geldi. We there find such passages as these : — * De 
prescripto hundreto habuit rex LXIIII solidos intra II termi" 
nos* (p. 20); 'nil denarios retinuerunt illi qui coUegerunt 
geldum in constitutis terminis' (p. 5). Thus, as in the original 
Berkshire instance, there were, we learn, two 'termini' at 
which the geld was due, and those ' termini ' were fixed ('con- 
stituti'). But we further learn, as in the Berkshire entiy, 
that a fixed proportion of the sum was due at each 
* terminus.' This we prove by such passages as that on the 
first page (repeated in duplicate on pp. 6, 13), that los. of the 
amount due * in primo termino * had been kept back ' usque ad 
extremum terminum ; ' or this : — * Sed de his denariis retinue- 
runt illi qui collegerunt geldum XV solidos et duo denarios 
usque ad is turn terminum ' (p. 5) ; or this : — ' XXXVI solidos et 
I denarium quos Rex debuisset habere in primo termino non 
habuit usque ad extremum terminum' (p. 11). You will find 
two similar complaints on p. 18, and another on p. 19. Now 
the point to observe here is the bearing of this arrangement 
on the system of the later Exchequer. The Danegeld, you 
see, like a modem farm rent, was paid in two fixed, and, we 
may say with virtual certainty, in two equal instalments. In 
the Exchequer system the Sheriff's ^rwa was similarly paid in 
two instalments, each of which was expected to represent a 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 91 

half of the total* In one matter there is essential harmony. 
One of the passages I have quoted above proves that the 
collectors of the geld were bound to pay over the first instal- 
ment to the Treasury on receiving it, but the geld account 
was not made out till the time of the second termimis. So 
with the Exchequer, the money was received partly at Easter, 
partly at Michaelmas, but there was only one annual 
account, that of Michaelmas.' 

But, whereas the • termini ' under the Confessor were, as 
we saw in Berkshire, Christmas and Whitsuntide, the Ex- 
chequer sessions were Easter and Michaelmas.' The Inquisitio 
Geldi introduces us to Easter, but only as the second (' ulti- 
mus ') term, and of a Michaelmas ' term ' there is no trace. 
It may be significant that the three * termini ' thus mentioned 
in connection with the geld are precisely those at wjiich were 
held the three great annual courts, Christmas, Easter, and 
Whitsuntide. I am tempted to believe that these geld rolls 
in the form in which we now have them were compiled at 
Winchester after the close of Easter 1084, by the body which 
was the germ of the future Exchequer. I would further sug- 
gest that the second ' terminus ' at which the geld was due to 
the collectors was * ante Pascha ' (compare the ' ante Natale * 
of the Berkshire entry). I infer this from the fact that one 
holder (Robert of Oilly) promised, it would seem, in two 
cases, that his quota should be forthcoming after Easter. In 
one case (p. 20) he paid up ; but the account had meanwhile 
been balanced, and his payment had to be specially entered 
(* Exceptis v hidis de quibus habuit [Rex] xxx solidos post 



> ' Quilibet enim vicecomes medietatem finnse illios quae de suo comitatn per 
annam exsargit in termino illo [i.e. Paschae] soluturus est.' — Dialogus^ ii. 2. 

* ' In termino Paschae a vicecomitibus non compoti sed quidam visus compo- 
tonim fiunt ; unde pene nihil eorum quae illic tunc geruntur scripturae com- 
mendatur ; sed totum reservatur alii termino.' — Ibid, 

' ' Bis in anno scaccarium convocetur, hoc est in termino Paschae et in termino 
Sancti Michaelis.* — Ihid, ii. I. 



1 



92 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

pascha.)' In another (p. 21), he failed ('rotbertus de oilleio 
retinuit XV solidos usque post pascha/ to which is added by- 
interlineation ' quos nondum habuit Rex '). It was at Easter, 
you will remember, that the Winchester Court was held. 
Lastly, I would ask whether the payment of the geld in these 
two half-yearly instalments of a shilling on the hide each 
may not have been the origin of the statement in the Leges 
Henrici Primi that geld was annually levied at the rate of a 
shilling on the hide. 

I now come to the question of exemption. On this 
Ellis writes : 

The demesne lands of churchmen and religious houses were 
uniformly excused. The demesne lands of the great lords, and 
barons, and others who held by military service, were likewise 
exempted : and partial exemptions were made in favour of the Barons 
of the Exchequer, the sheriffs of counties, and the assessors and 
collectors of the tax : a few exemptions also were claimed under 
especial grants from the king ; by means of all which, it will be 
readily believed, the produce of the tax had been much diminished.^ 

Mr. Pearson, who devotes much attention to Domesday, 
holds that : 

The demesne lands of the Church, and, later at least, of sheriffs, 
exchequer-officers, and of all military tenants, were exempt, or only 
taxed under very heavy pressure. 

Dr. Stubbs briefly observes, that ' all persons employed in 
the king's service were excepted from the impost.' 

Mr. Eyton, whose views on this subject are, of course, of 
the highest importance, confidently asserts that : 

It was a principle of the gheld-laws, if not from their earliest 
date, yet as they stood in the Confessor's time, that not only the 
ancient crown demesnes wer6 to be absolutely ingeldable, but 
that the bona-fide demesnes of the thanes or other tenants in 
capite should be exempted from any current gheld levy. Such an 
exemption, perpetuated by the Normans, was nothing more nor less 

' Introduction^ L 351*. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 93 

than a quid pro quo for the military and other services to which 
these tenants in capite were personally liable.' 

And in another place he similarly alludes to ' the statutory- 
exemption of all Baronial demesnes.' ^ 

Now it is obvious that, if this were the case, all calculations 
as to Dan^eld would be most seriously affected. It is a point, 
therefore, which it is essential to decide. Now the solitary 
proof advanced by Mr. Eyton, as * most relevant ' to his 
assertions on the question is that of the peculiar, and, as he 
terms it, ' colossal manor of Tewkesbury.* • But what are we 
told of that manor ? That it was assessed T.R.E. at 95 
hides, and that, of these, 45 hides was the assessment on its 
dominium^hyxt that the 50 remaining hides ' faciebant quietas ' 
the whole 95 ' ab omni geldo et servitio regali.' * In other 
words, the special exemption of the dominium of this manor 
from paying the hidage at which it was assessed, is carefully 
recorded, as an exception, in the Survey, but is taken by 
Mr. Eyton as an example of the universal rule, whereas it is 
essentially, on the contrary, the exception, as is shown by the 
very fact of its being so recorded ; thus, so far from proving, it 
really disproves the rule. 

Mr. Eyton's authority, however, must carry such great 
weight, especially on so important a point as this, that 
further inquiry may be demanded. For my own part, I 
must say that I cannot understand how anyone can fail, in 
studying the Survey, to see that the whole scheme of the 
Danegeld contemplated the taxing of the hides in demesne 
just as much as the hides in villenage, as the normal condition 

* Key to Donusday^ p. 5. 
« Ibid, p. 62. 

* Ibid, p. 5. (Domesday, i. 163). 

« ' In Teodechesberie fuenint T.R.E. quater xx et xv hidae. Ex his sunt in do. 
minio XLV et erant quiete ab omni servitio regali et geldo preter servitium ipsius 
domini cujus erat Maneriam. . . . Quater xx et XV hidas quae pertin[uenint] ad 
Tedecbesberie quinquaginta hidae supra memoratse faciebant quietas et liberas ab 
omni geldo et regali servitio ' (fo. 163). 



94 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

of things. For if, as Mr. Eyton rightly holds, the assessment 
of the whole manor was based on its real value, and if, as was 
the case, part of that assessment (and that part often the bulk) 
was laid on the dominium^ the exemption of the said dominium 
would be fatal to the whole system. But if definite evidence 
be asked for against the alleged exemption, I may point to 
the Dialogus de Scaccario^ of which the autliority must be 
supreme on the question, and in which we read in the chapter 
on Danegeld (i. 1 1 ) : 

Ab ipso liberi sunt qui assident ad^scaccarium, sicut dictum est 
Vice-comites quoque, licet inter barones scaccarii non computantur, 
ab hoc quieti sunt de dominiis suis, propter laboriosam ejusdem 
census coUectam. 

That is to say that, even so late as this, the only persons who 
could claim exemption were the Barons of the Exchequer by 
right, and the sheriffs by favour. You may remember that 
one of the chief concessions in the Coronation charter of 
Henry I, was the exemption from geld granted to the de- 
mesnes of all tenants by knight service : 

Militibus qui per loricas terras suas defendunt, terras domini- 
carum carrucarum suarum quietas ab omnibus gildis, et omni 
opere, proprio dono meo concedo. 

It would seem from the Dialogus that this important con- 
cession must, as in other cases, have been subsequently 
cancelled by the crown. The Exon Domesday well illus- 
trates what I have described as the bearing of the 
whole evidence of the Survey. I select it because of its ex- 
plicit phrase, ' reddidit gildum.' Thus, on p. 262, Count 
Eustace is entered as holding Lochestone, which in the time 
of Edward the Confessor paid geld (' reddidit gildum ') on 
five hides. ' Inde habet Comes IIII hidas ... in dominie, 
et villani I hidam.' That is, the demesne was responsible 
for four-fifths, and the villenagium for one-fifth of the geld 
assessed on the manor, which geld was paid in full. So too. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 95 

on the next page, we read of ' Comes Hugo ' that he held a 
manor which ' reddidit gildum pro dimidiS. hidd/ and that a 
quarter of this geld was paid by the demesne and three- 
quarters by the villenage. Again, on p. 265, we see Baldwin 
the sheriff holding a manor which 'reddidit geldum pro I 
viigata,' of which one-third was assessed on the demesne, and 
two-thirds on the villenage. This may be compared with 
such entries in the Liier Niger of Peterborough {circ. 1125) 
as ' In Castre IIII hidae et dimidia in dominio sed villani [eas] 
adquietant,' and (in another manor) si hides of which * dominus 
adquietat dimidiam et villani dimidiam' (p. 161). Indeed 
in the special cases where the demesne was exempted, we 
find the fact particularly mentioned. Thus in Gloucestershire 
(Exchequer Domesday) : ' Ibi x hidae geldantes preter domi- 
nium quod non geldat* (l i6y b [2]). On the next page 
(168 ^j [i]), ' Ibi V hidae,' over which we have the interlineation 
* geldantes preter dominium ; ' and further on we similarly 
read : — * Ibi x hidae geldantes preter dominium ' (L 169 6 [i]). 
It was precisely, I take it, because their demesnes were liable 
to geld, that we find, as I shall show, the followers of the 
Conqueror greedily striving for a reduction of the assessment 
on the manors they held in dominio. 

As to the exemption of ecclesiastical demesnes, this view 
would seem to be based on the nth caput of the so-called 
Laws of Edward the Confessor.* That such demesnes were 

' ' De hoc quoque Danegeldo libera et qnieta erat omnis ecclesia et etiam omnis 
tern quae in proprio dominio ecclesiae erat, ubicunque jacebat, nihil prorsus in 
tali redditione persolvens, quia magis in ecclesise confidebant orationibus quam in 
armorum defensionibus.* Obviously this ecclesiastical explanation throws some 
doubt on the entire statement, nor is that doubt lessened when we find that this 
law of Edward the Confessor proceeds to refer to its own abrogation in the days 
of William Rnfus. ' Et hanc libertatem tenuit Anglorum ecclesia usque ad tem- 
pora Willielmi regis junioris, qui de baronibus totius Anglie auxilium petit 
. . . Concessum est ei, non lege statutum neque firmatum, sed habmt necessitatis 
cansa ex nnaqoaque hidalin solidos, ecclesia non excepta . . . proclamabatsancta 
ecclesia libertatem suam reposcens, sed nihil profecit.' With this remarkable 
passage I have dealt above (p. 83). 



96 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

distinctly geldable, and did actually pay geld, is clear from 
such passages as these, which are taken from the Inquest on 
the manors of St Paul's in 1 1 8 1 . Out of ten hides in one manor, 
half a hide ' est in dominio geldabilis ' (p. 141). In another of 
two hides and three-quarters, we read of its demesne : ' De hoc 
dominio una virgata et IX acre geldant cum villata ' (p. 142). 
Of another, that, of its seven hides and a half, four were in 
demesne, but that these four * quiete sunt preter quam de 
hydagio et denegeld' (id,) And of a fourth that, of its 
twenty hides, five were in dominio^ which five, though free from 
the atsxilium vicomitis, * cum aliis sunt geldabiles in omni 
hydagio ' (p. 143). ^ Compare with this the entry in the early 
Burton Survey relating to the abbatial manor of Winshill : 

De altera terra gildabili sunt etiam in dominio v bovatas. . . . 
Terra hominum se defendit pro 11 camicatis cum v bovatis pre- 
dictis dominicis} 

That is to say that, of the whole hidage assessed on the manor, 
five parts were paid by the demesne and eleven parts by the 
terra hominum. Nothing can be more explicit. Lastly, turn- 
ing to Domesday itself, we have the very remarkable entry at 
the end of the Survey of Huntingdon : 

In Herstingest Hundret sunt dominicae car[ucatae] quietae de 
geldo regis. Villani et sochemanni geldant secundum hidas in brevi 
scriptas. Excepta Broctone ubi geldat abbas cum aliis pro una 
hida (i. 203 [2]). 

That is to say that, by a special exemption, the demesnes 
were, in this hundred, free from paying geld, except in one 
manor, where their normal liability to geld held good. The 
result can be traced throughout the Survey of the county, in 
the entries relating to this hundred, of which the bulk be- 
longed to the abbeys of Ely and of Croyland. By a special 
formula in the case of the manors they affected, we are first 

> Barton Cartulary y fo. la. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 97 

told the number of the hida ad geldum, then that of the plough- 
teams in villenage, and then the phrase * exceptis his hidis/ or 
* extra predictas hidas/ introduces the specially exempt de- 
mesne. You will see at once that this special arrangement 
must have been essentially an exceptional state of things. 

So much for the exemption of ecclesiastical demesnes. 

But now let me add at once that the levy-rolls of the 
Danegeld of 1084 distinctly show that, on that occasion, the 
hides ' in dominio ' were exempted from the tax. If, then, you 
admit that I have proved my point — namely, that hides in 
demesne were not normally exempt — what follows ? Surely 
that we have here the coincidence of two abnormal phenomena, 
an abnormal geld-rate of dr. on the hide, coinciding with an 
abnormal exemption from geld accorded to the baronial hides 
in demesne. May not these two phenomena be connected } 
That is the question I have now to ask you. 

I cannot find that anyone has attempted to explain the 
(to me) puzzling question why the Danegeld which is not 
found on any other occasion exceeding the rate of two shil- 
lings (save, probably, in the exceptional levy of 1096 *) was 
raised, in this year, at the rate of six. Dr. Stubbs merely 
observes that the Conqueror ' demanded a sum of six shillings 
from every hide of land, three times the old rate,' ' and in 
another place that the tax 'had been trebled: six shillings 
were exacted from each hide of land instead of two, the usual 
sum raised under the Anglo-Saxon kings.' ' Dr. Gneist speaks 
of it as ' a war-tax of an amount till then unheard of, being 
seventy-two pence for every hide.' * Now, remembering that 
the villeins were themselves responsible for the amount due 
from the hides in villenage, have we not here traces of a 
compromise — we might almost say a conspiracy — between 
the Conqueror and his * barons ' hitherto unsuspected by his- 
torians ? Was he not allowed by them on this occasion to 

» Supra, p. 84. « Const, Hist. i. 279. ■ Ibid, i. 381. « Ibid, i. 215. 
VOL. I. H 



K/ 



98 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

fix the rate at this abnormal sum on condition of their own 
demesnes being wholly exempted from the levy ? The result 
would be that they would themselves escape their detested 
liability at the cost of those beneath them, and that the Con- 
queror would derive from the tax a larger aggregate return, 
though (owing to these exemptions) by no means thrice, nor 
even twice, the normal total. This can, of course, be only a 
suggestion, but I claim that it would fairly explain the pheno- 
mena, and that, if it be correct, it is of some novelty and interest 
I now pass to special exemptions, cases in which some 
portion of land was made geld-free by a special act of the 
crown. Let us take the two Gloucestershire manors belonging 
to the Abbey of Bath. Each of them was assessed at five 
hides ; thus in each case we read of these hides that ' tres 
geldant * and that * duo non geldant ' (or * sunt a geldo quietae ') 
' concessu E. et W. regum ' (1. 165 [2]). That is, that Edward 
had exempted two hides in each manor from liability to geld, 
and that William had confirmed the exemption. So too with 
a lay holding. Thus, of an estate in the forest of Dean, we 
read, ' has terras concessit rex E. quietas a geldo pro foresta 
custodienda ' (i. 167 b, 2). And of Henry de Ferrers' estate 
at Lechlade we are told, * Ibi XV hidae T.R.E. geldantes. 
Sed ipse rex concessit VI hidas quietas a geldo. Hoc testatur 
omnis comitatus et ipse qui sigillum regis detulit* (i. 169 [i]). 
In another case the remission, on the contrary, seems not to 
have been proved to the complete satisfaction of the legati. 
We read of Hampton : — * Ibi X hidae. Eldred archiepiscopus 
tenuit. Rex Edwardus dedit ei II hidas quietas ex his X, 
ut dicunt ' (168). Again, of two manors in the fief of Sigar de 
Cioches, we read : — * Ibi x hidae. Wills, rex concessit III hidas 
ex his quietas a geldo,' and ' Ibi v hidae, ex his III sunt quietae a 
geldo per W. regem ut dicit homo Sigardi ' (i. 170 [2]). All 
the above instances are taken from the same county, possibly 
because this formula is only or chiefly used there. The thing 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 99 

itself must have occurred elsewhere. In the adjacent county 
of Worcestershire we have a very curious case. 

Ipsa aecclesia [de Evesham] tenet Ambreslege. Hsec anti- 
quitus pro iii hidis fiiit libera sicut dicunt cartas de ascclesia, sed 
T.R.E. fuit numerata pro xv hidis inter silvam et planum et iii hidae 
ex his sunt liberae (175 b^ 2). 

Here the Abbey must have produced its title-deeds before 
the legati. The figures, however, would seem to suggest that 
while the exemption was only intended to free three hides out 
of the fifteen from geld, the Abbey must have endeavoured to 
represent it wrongfully as enacting that only three of the 
fifteen hides should be liable to the payment of geld.' But 
the word to notice here is * numerata.' Its use explains the 
Domesday formula that there were so many hides * numero ' 
in some given manor. Such an expression clearly means that 
such was the assessed number on the rolls, which rolls, we 
must always remember, afforded the crown its indispensable 
check on the assertions and pretensions of its subject. 

The very next manor on this page of Domesday provides 
us with a remarkable and suggestive case, though of quite a 
different kind. 

Ipsa aecclesia tenet Hantone. Ibi v hidae fuerunt T.R.E. {ibid). 

Now throughout the litigation under the Conqueror on this 
manor between the churches of Worcester and of Evesham, 
we find it entered not as of five, but as of fifteen hides.* 
Fortunately, there exists a special survey of the fief of the 
Church of Worcester, under Henry I. (though it would seem 
to be little, if at all, known). In it we read of this manor : 

Ex his habet Abbas de Eovesham v hidas apud Hamtun 
geldantes et x sunt quiete a geldo per breve Regis. ... He omnes 
sunt geldantes et preter has x sunt quiete apud Hamtun a geldo per 
breve regis ut supra diximus.' 

» Heming's Cartulary, ' Ibid, p. 315. 

H 2 



loo DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

Here the discrepancy is precisely accounted for. It is strange, 
however, that this * breve regis ' should have been issued so 
long before, for even T.R.E., as we have seen, the assessment 
was only five hides. Of course we are led by such a case to 
inquire whether, in other cases also, the assessment recorded 
in the Great Survey may not have been reduced from the 
original figure, though the fact of such reduction is not alluded 
to in the record ? 

A case of reduction may be added from Herefordshire : — 
* Ibi [Cuure] XV hidae geldantes, sed rex W. condonavit vi 
hidas quietas a geldo' (i. i86). 

In Berkshire we have this curious entry relating to one of 
the manors belonging to Abingdon Abbey: — 'Tunc se de- 
fendebat pro X hidis, modo pro VIII. Tamen fuit pro XV 
hidis, sed rex E. condonavit pro XI hidis ut dicunt ' (58 ^, 2). 
The figures here seem difficult, if not impossible, to understand. 
In the same county we have some other remarkable passives. 
For instance, of a manor of Westminster Abbey (' Peliforde *) 
which Harold had held T.R.E., we read: — 'Antequam 
Heraldus habuisset, defendebat sepro xxvii hidis. Postquam 
habuit, pro XVI hidis ad libitum heraldi. Homines de hundret 
nunquam audierunt nee viderunt breve ex parte regis qui ad 
tantum posuisset ' (32). Moreover, against this entry we find 
a marginal note: — *Modo geldat pro viii hidis.' This is a 
striking passage. Again, of one of the manors of Battle Abbey 
we read : — ' Heraldus comes tenuit. Tunc [se defendebat] pro 
X hidis. Quidam tainus qui ante eum tenuit geldabat pro XV 
hidis. Modo (geldat) pro nichilo ' (59 b, 2). That is to say, 
it had been first held by a thegn who paid geld on fifteen 
hides, then by Earl Harold, in favour of whom the assessment 
was reduced to ten hides, and lastly by Battle Abbey, in favour 
of which it was freed from any assessment whatever. Such an 
entry is most instructive as illustrating the gradual diminution 
of the revenue by this practice of special exemption. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY loi 

It would seem probable that the ' tamen ' above may prove 
the clue to the fonnula which otcxirs throughout the Survey of 
Cornwall This Cornwall phenomenon, which is very remark- 
able, has hardly obtained the attention it deserves. We have a 
typical instance in the entry : ' Ipse Comes tenet Liscarret. 
Merlesuain tenebat T.R.E. et geldabat pro li hidis. Ibi 
tamen sunt sunt Xii hidae. Terra est LX carrucis' (121 ^, i). 
The great peculiarity of these entries is that so far from being 
the exception, they are the rule throughout the county. On 
this point reference should be made to Mr. Eyton's * Dorset 
Domesday.' ' He rightly points out that, even without this 
exemption (if such it was), the hidation was exceptionally 
favourable ; but I think he hardly brings out as clearly as 
could be wished, that, in these cases, the larger number of hides 
represented an actual original assessment for the purpose 
of taxation. 

In Hampshire we are told of the manor of Clere, belonging 
to the New Minster, * T.R.E. se defendebat pro llli hidis et 
una virgata, modo pro nichilo. Revocant regem pro geldo ' 
(i. 43 [2]). That is to say, the Abbey appealed to a grant of 
the king exempting them. It so happens that we have, in 
this case, an early if not contemporary transcript of the charter 
granting the manor. I at length succeeded in seeing this, which 
has probably been seen by very few, and found that by it the 
king granted the manor geld-free. Here, then, we have a case 
in point This, however, is the nearest approach that I can find 
in this reign to a charter granting exemption, and it is not 
quite what we want We have a somewhat different case in 
the charter printed by Madox, which grants to the Abbey of 
Westminster * vill hidas de manerio Piriford quae in Dominio 
meo sunt infra Forestam de Windlesores quietas amodo semper 
et liberas a geldo a scoto et ab omni consuetudine et censu 
pecuniae quae £;eld vocatur Anglic^. Testibus etc. Post 

' P. 5t 9* See also his Stajfordihire Survey. 



I02 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

descriptionem totius Angliae ' (p. 238).' This I take to be a 
writ exempting the estate in question from that liability to 
' geld ' which would otherwise fall upon it, on being severed 
from Windsor (* Ancient Demesne '). But this charter, if 
genuine, is in many ways worthy of attention. • Piriford ' is 
obviously the present Pyrford (far as that village is now from 
the forest), and must also represent the * Peliforde * of Domes- 
day of which we read : — ' De hac terra habet rex ill hidas in 
foresta sua ' (32). But the points for our purpose to be specially 
noted are the remarkable description * censu pecuniae <\\x^geld 
vocatur Anglic6,' which seems very distinctly to imply that 
there was only one kind of ' geld ' then recognised, and the 
mention of ' scot ' and ' geld ' as two separate and distinct 
impositions in a way which, if the text is all right, somewhat 
complicates the meaning. By far the most valuable definition 
I have met with — that is, if we can trust it— is in a grant of 
liberties by Henry I. to Ramsey Abbey : 

Et omnia sua sint libera ab omni regia consuetudine et ab omni 
colkcHone census qua geld vel scot vel Denegeld Anglich nominatur,^ 

But it sounds ' too good to be true.* 

There is further the striking expression 'Post descrip- 
tionem Angliae,' on which I have commented in another 
paper. 

The exemption of what may be termed the home estate 
of St. Paul's is deserving of notice because it rests on successive 
charters of the Conqueror, of William Rufus, and of Henry I. 
The charter of William Rufus runs : 

Precipio quod secclesia Sancti Pauli et canonici ejusdem 
aecclesiae teneant libere et solute et quiete xxiiii hidas quas habent 
juxta civitatem Londonie de denegeldis et omnibus aliis geldis et 
omnibus operibus et expeditionibus sicut pater meus precepit per 
cartam suam.' 

* No. cccxcvi : < Ex autographo.' * Ramsey Cartulary^ i. 242-3. 

* Hist, MSS, Commission^ App. I. 60 b. The Conqueror's charter here con- 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 103 

Henry I. thus confirms it : 

Precipio vobis ut dimittatis totam tenram canoniconim Sancti 
Pauli Londonie, videlicet xxiiii hidas. . . . ita omnino esse quietam 
de hoc geldo et omnibus aliis geldis sicut melius fuit tempore patris 
et fratris mei« et de omnibus aliis consuetudinibus et operibus, sicuti 
brevia patris et fratris mei precipiunt^ 

In this latter charter the phrase 'de hoc geldo' ought to be 
carefully noted, as it may prove of considerable importance. 
If, as it would seem, it means ' from this levy of the geld,* * 
then the words ' de omnibus aliis geldis ' might mean ' from all 
other levies of the same,' but the point cannot be regarded as 
wholly free from doubt. 

To complete the chain of evidence by continuing the 
sequence of reigns, we will next take the grant of Bromham 
by William Rufus to Battle Abbey. Here the case is some- 
what different, Bromham not having been ancient demesne 
of the crown. The clause of exemption runs thus : — ' Volo 
ergo et firmiter precipio ut sic libere et quiete et in pace eam 
Monachi teneant ab omnibus Consuetudinibus, Geldis et Scotis^ 
et Hidagiis et Danegeldis .... sicut Pater meus liberius et 
quietius tenuif Here the mention by name of, it would 
seem, four separate impositions, is important to notice, though, 
of course, in both the above charters, their evidence is subject, 
as always, to their authenticity. 

Passing to the reign of Henry I., we have in the Roister 
of the Church of Worcester,* a charter of Heniy I. freeing 
five of the fifteen hides of Alveston from geld — that is to say, 
reducing the assessment from fifteen to ten hides. This case 

finned is found in Cartu Antiqua, CC. 16. He grants ' xxiiii hidas quas Rex iEdel- 
bert dedit . '. . juxta Civitatem Lundonie . . . liberas esse et quietas de Dane- 
geldo et omnibus aliis geldis/ etc. 

I Hist, MSS. Commission^ p. 45 a. 

' This is certainly the case in another and similar writ of Henry I. to the Sheriff 
of Oxfordshire {Abingdon Cartulary^ ii. 69-70). 

■ Madox's Formularium, p. 176. 

« Rtgistor of St, Marysy Worcester (cd. Hale). 



104 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

should be compared with that of Hampton above. We have 
also a good example of the formulae used for the purpose in his 
charter of confirmation to Hurley Priory. The clause runs : 

Praeterea volo et firmiter precipio, quod dimittatis esse in pace 
imperpetuum vi Hidas Ecclesise ejusdem de Dominio Prions et 
Monachonim de omnibus Geldis et Danegeidis et teloneo per 
Angliam.' 

Lastly, we have an important cliarter of Stephen freeing 
six and a half hides of the manor of Westminster (belonging 
to the Abbey) from liability to Danegeld &c. Here is the 
relevant portion : 

Sciatis me imperpetuum claroasse quietas Deo &c vi Hidas et 
dimidiam Hidam in eodem Manerio Westmonasterii. . . . de omnibus 
Geldis et Danegeidis et Murdris &c. &c. . . . Quare volo et firmiter 
precipio quod Ecclesia predicta Sancti Petri et Monachi quietantiam 
VI Hidarum et dimidiae Hidse finabiliter possideant in perpetuam 
elemosinam.' 

The above charter may serve to illustrate the caution that 
should be employed in using the terms * geld ' and * Danegeld.' 
It seems virtually clear that under the Conqueror there was 
but one kind of ' geld/ and though these charters may raise a 
doubt as to the succeeding reigns, the evidence of the Pipe 
Rolls would seem to point to there having been only, in 
practice, one exaction of the kind. On the whole, the ques- 
tion can scarcely be regarded as being yet definitely settled. 

In any case the practice and system of exemption has 
now been traced down from the days of Edward the Con- 
fessor, the later examples being intended to throw light on 
the probable character of those which we find recorded in 
Domesday.* 

* Madox*s Fcrmularium, p. 38. * /Hd. p. 293. 

' Although somewhat later in date, reference may be made to an important 
writ of Henry II. to the Barons of the Exchequer, early in his reign, notifying that 
he had exempted thirty-eight hides belonging tg St. John's Abbey, Colchester, 
rom liability to geld {Carta Antigua^ v. 36. Printed in Old Monasticon, il 893). 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 105 

Entirely distinct from these special exemptions was the 
case of that land which had never paid geld (* quae nunquam 
geldavit'). The two expressions that Domesday employs 
for such land are ' inland ' and * carucate ' (in a special sense). 
Let us first take the * carucate.' 

The occasional occurrence of the * carucate ' in the hidated 
districts is, as Mr. Eyton observes, * one of the curiosities in 
Domesday.* Both in his • Dorset * and in his * Staffordshire * 
monographs he devotes special attention to the subject, and 
examines with great care the passages in which the use 
occurs. His remarks will be found in the former of these 
works on pp. 16-22, and in the latter on pp. 18, 24-5, &c. 
In Dorset he fairly makes good his point that the ' carucate ' 
is the term employed for the measurement of ' ungeldable ' 
land, land ' quae nunquam geldavit.' But he further held 

that the term carucata was introduced by the Normans, and that they 
intended thereby an estate which, in point of value and capacity, 
was closely analogous to the Saxon hide (* Dorset Domesday,* p. 17). 
. . . tantamount to the privileged and ingeldable hide ; to the hide 
not as yet distorted from its more ancient form by considerations of 
relative value (/<J. p. 18). 

Now this point is really one of very great importance. Much 
depends on it I cannot admit that Mr. Eyton puts it as 
clearly as could be wished. The question really is this. Was 
the 'carucate,' in terms of which the Domesday Commis- 
sioners described lands which had never been hidated (' quae 
nunquam divisae sunt per hidas *), and had never paid geld, a 
carucate 'ad arandum* or a carucate 'ad geldum.' If, as 
Mr. Eyton appears to hold, the ' carucate * in this special use 
corresponded in character with the 'hide' (of Domesday), 
then (as the Domesday hide was a ' hida ad geldum ') these 
'carucates ' must have been 'carucatae ad geldum.' But as it 
was, by his admission, their essence that they were not geld 
measures at all, it follows that they must have been carucates 



io6 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

* ad arandum ' — that is to say, units of measurement, not units 
of geld assessment 

But we must not overlook the Staffordshire examples. 
Of ' the waste vills ' in that county, 

In three cases the Commissioners reported a carucatagCy which 
seems to have been in Staffordshire a figure for unverified hidage. 
In the other fourteen cases they reported only the arable element of 
each estate, and about this they were not sure. . . . They estimated 
the area of three estates in terms of canjcatage — that is, I suppose, of 
presumptive hidage. They measured the other two in terms of 
carucage which implied only the extent of the arable portion 
(* Staffordshire Domesday,' pp. i8, 19). 

Treating further of these 'carucates,' of which he tells us 
there were in Staffordshire thirty-seven and a half, Mr. Eyton 
observes that 

There is no invariable connection between the ' carucata terrae » 
and the ' terra ad unam carucam.' 

I should here state, or repeat, what I consider to have been the 
meaning of the term * carucata terrse ' in the Staffordshire Survey. I 
think it was a conceptional hide. 

The Norman surveyors used it for land which had never been 
hidated, or whose hidation they could not fix or discover. So they 
used it as an alternative for the Saxon hide ; not as having any 
other than an etymological association with the terra ad unam 
carucam or ploughland, from which they always distinguished it 
{Und. pp. 24, 5). 

It is with great reluctance that I have eventually arrived 
at the conclusion that Mr. Eyton was mistaken, and that, at 
any rate in the cases he was here discussing, the carucata was 
virtually, it would appear, the equivalent of the terra ad unam 
carucam. No one, I think, can go through the instances he 
gives in Dorset (pp. 16-22) without being driven to this con- 
clusion- And it is specially noteworthy that whereas the 
*hida' is systematically opposed to the 'terra ad unam 
carucam,' as measures calculated on different systems, the 
' carucata * is, it would seem, never. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 107 



The important inference from all this is that when the term 
* carucate ' occurs in hidated districts, it represents the name 
given by the Normans to a ploughland which was free from 
liability to geld. Had it been liable, it would then have 
been described in terms of the Anglo-Saxon * hide/ the unit 
of geld-assessment. As it was not so liable, they were free to 
describe it by the name in use for a ploughland among them- 
selves. 

Let us now pass to the 'inland,* the other term, as I 
contend, by which Domesday describes land not liable to 
geld. In order to establish my case on this point, I here 
append typical entries, (i) from the Survey of Somerset, (2) 
from the Survey of Dorset, (3) from the Survey of Oxford- 
shire, (4) from the peculiar Hundred of ' Herstingest,' in the 
Huntingdonshire Survey, in which the hides in demesne were 
specially exempted from geld. 



Somerset. 
(I. 90.) 

Ipsa aecclesia tenet Piltone. 
T.R.E. geldabat pro xx hidis. 
Terra est xxx camicis. Prefer 
hanc ^ kabet abbas ibi terram xx 
carrucis qua nunquam geldavit. 

In dominio sunt x camicae et 
XV send et xxi villani et xlii 
bordarii super terram non geld- 
antem.' 



hidis et una virgata terrae. 
Terra est xx carrucis. Prefer 
hanc terram habet in doininio 1 1 
carrucaias term qua nunquam 
geldaverunt et ibi habet 1 1 carru- 
cas. 

Idem episcopus tenet Altone. 
T.R.E. geldabat pro vi hidis. 
Terra est vi carrucis. Prefer 
hanc habet terram 11 carru- 
carum in dominio qua nunquam 
geldavit Ibi habet 1 1 carrucas. 



Dorset. 
(I. 77, 75 b.) 
Episcopus idem tenet Beim- 
instre. T.R.E. geldabat pro xvi 



Oxfordshire. 
0. 158, iSS ^^, 156 b.) 
Idem Robertus tenet Etone. 
Ibi sunt V hidse. Prefer has 



* < Exceptis his hidis/ in Exon Domesday. 
' ' Quae nunquam reddidit gildum * {ib, ). 



io8 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

hidas habet de inland in hidas Hunts. 

tt dimidiam qua nunquam /]. 204.) 

Tu- 1 u-j ^ J- J- In Sumersham habet abbas de 

Ibi sunt XV hidaeet dimidia. „, ... j ,, ^ 

rrs ^ • . Ely VIII hidas ad geldum. Terra 

. . . Terra est xviii camicis et "^ .J? . » . 

* *-j ^ • r* 1 r V • • X" camicis. Et exceptts hts 

totidem invenrtaej. In domtnto ,.-..,.. 

'••'..,, /(/tfwmdommio terra II camicis. 

«/ /(?mi 1 1 carructs inland. » t^ . , , 

-, . ^ , . , T^ - . In Riptune habet abbas de 

Ibi sunt L hidae. De his „ *^, . , , , , rw. 

, . ^ • J . . Ramesy X hidas ad geldum. Terra 

habet episcopus m dominio ' . ...... 

. . , , . , XVI camicis et tn domtnto terra 

terrain x camicis et iii hidas , . j.^ ,.» 

^ ^ . , , II carrtuis extra predtdas hidas. 
preter inland, 

Tu- L'j J ' 1 J In Upehude habet abbas de 

Ibi I htda de inland que „ i_.j j ,j 

, . .^ ' Ramesy x hidas ad geldum. 

nunquam geldavit «, . ^, . 

^ ** Terra xvi carrucis. Et in 

dominio terra in carrucis preter 

predictas hidas. 

The term 'inland' is deserving of more careful study than 
it has obtained. Excluding the cases of Lincolnshire and 
Yorkshire, in which counties it occurs in several places, and 
it would seem, in a special sense, it is but rarely employed 
in Domesday. It occurs in Kent, Northamptonshire, and 
Shropshire, but only once or twice, I think, in each of these 
three counties. The only other county, I believe, in which it 
is found (it is difficult on such a point to speak with certainty) 
is Oxfordshire. 

Mr. Seebohm, indeed, asserts that *the lord's demesne 
land was called in the Exon Domesday for Cornwall the 
"thane's inland,*"* but though I have gone specially through 
the whole record in the hope of verifying this statement, I 
cannot find a single instance. The ' demesne ' is entered as 
dominium with seemingly unvarying regularity. ' Inland ' it 
may be as well to observe, must not be confused with * Tain- 
land,' which is a term often applied in Domesday to land 
which had, under King Edward, belonged to a private holder 
(tainus\ but which, at the time of the Survey, had become 
annexed to ' Terra Regis.' 

* English Village Community ^ p. 134. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 109 

Though the examples of ' inland ' which occur in Oxford- 
shire include lands measured by the hide, and therefore, 
presumably, once geldable, yet it is quite clear that there, at 
least, * inland ' meant land not subject to geld at the time when 
it was so described. ' Inland * occurs very prominently in the 
extremely curious Anglo-Saxon Record printed by Ellis in 
his • Introduction' (i. 184-7). But the point I want to bring 
out is, that ' inland ' may have been, before the Conquest, the 
term representing * demesne ' (Stubbs's ' Select Charters/ pp. 
70, 523), but I deny that such was its meaning in Domesday, 
or in later records. Here is a striking instance in point, from 
the great Survey itself. ' De hac terra habent Rex et comes 
VIII carucatas in dominio. . . . Prater has VIII carucatas 
habent Rex et comes CC et XXXI acras terrae arabilis inland * 
(i. 336). Here the 'dominium,* it will be seen, is sharply 
distinguished from the ' inland.' Its meaning can perhaps be 
best studied in the early abbatial surveys contained in the 
Burton Cartulary. Its learned editor (General Wrottesley) 
writes thus on * Inland : ' 

The Inlands were the lands held in demesne ; the name still 
exists in many places ; they were, I believe, not liable to taxation, 
hke the land in hands of tenants. See under Appleby (p. 18 note). 

But the very instance here appealed to, that of Appleby, 
is the key to the meaning of the term : 

In Appdby nichil Inlandas est, id est qua sit sine geldo Regis. 
Terra in dominio est xxxiiii virgata. . . . Terra hominum se defendit 
pro XXIII virgatis (p. 30). 

Nothing could be more conclusive. In the first place, we 
are told that there was, at Appleby, no ' inland,* and yet that 
there were lands * held in demesne/ which proves that the two 
were not identical. In the second, we are given, in so many 
words, the true meaning of ' inland ' : it is land free front 
HaHlity to geld (' quae est sine geldo regis '). The way in which 



no DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

the holder realised this privilege was that he made the tenant 
pay geld to himself. So at Stratton : ' Rowen filius Leverici 
[tenet] il bovatas de Inlanda pro III solidis et debet geldare 
Abbati ' (p. 19). But besides this essential characteristic of 
' inland/ there was the further one that it normally formed 
part, although a separate and distinct part, of the demesne. 
The Oxfordshire entries in Domesday illustrate this point. 
The Burton Cartulary does so also, as in the case of Winshill, 
where the demesne comprised five bovates of ' terra gildabilis * 
and two ploughlands of ' inland ' (p. 29). This explains the 
meaning of the expression • Terras de dominico, quas vocant 
Inlandes,' ' namely, that portion of the demesne which they 
call ' Inlands.' It further explains the instructive charter of 
Henry I. aptly quoted by Ellis (* Introduction,' i. 230) : • Si 
vicecomites Berkesire et prepositi de Chels. dederunt ali- 
quid et posuerunt extra dominium de inlanda de Chels. facite 
totam illam inlandam redire in dominium Abbatis.' Here 
the * inlanda ' and the * dominium,' it will be seen, are used as 
distinct terms. 

We will now glance at a Domesday phenomenon which, 
so far as I know, has escaped notice, but which may be des- 
tined to prove of singular interest and importance. This is the 
reduction of the ' geld ' assessment throughout four southern 
counties. When I mention that these four counties are Sussex, 
Surrey, Hampshire, and Berks, it will be seen that they not 
only cover between them a compact block of country, but 
that they comprise that district which was probably the first 
to fall beneath the real sway of the Conqueror, and which 
was traversed by him in the course of that somewhat mysterious 
period which intervened between his great victory and his 
formal acceptance as king. 

1 Occurring, in 1240, at Beauchamp St. PauPs, Essex (Hale, Domesday of St. 
PauVs, pp. 118.121). 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY in 

It is this peculiar geographical position which invests the 
phenomenon we are about to approach with distinct historical 
importance. 

Let us take, from each county in turn, typical instances in 
point. We will begin with Surrey, where the reduction ap- 
pears to have been most sweeping. Here the assessment of 
Croydon and Mortlake, which the Primate held ' in dominio,' 
was reduced from 160 hides to 41^ hides. That of four 
manors which he held 'de victu et vestitu monachorum,' 
from 59 hides to is|. That of the two manors held by Earl 
Eustace was reduced from 60 hides to 1 1 (though they con- 
tained SO ploughlands), while the two held by the Count of 
Mortain, which had been assessed T.R.E. at 1 3f hides, were now 
exempted altogether. Richard Fitz Gilbert held two manors, 
of which the assessment had been reduced from 30 hides 
to 9 ; Geoffrey de Mandeville three manors in which the 
reduction was no less than from 44 to 9. And these are but 
specimen instances. 

In Sussex, the assessment of the four manors held 'in 
dominio' by Earl Roger was reduced from 193^ hides to loi, 
that of the four similarly held by William of Warenne from 
224 hides to 142, and of the four of William de Braose from 
32 hides to I2f. 

As in Sussex the reduction was less sweeping than in 
Surrey, so in Hampshire it seems to have had less effect than 
in Sussex. Still on four of the episcopal manors the assess- 
ment seems to have been reduced from 10 1 hides to 76, and 
on the four dominical manors of Hugh de Port, from 29 hides 
to 18. And on two manors of Earl Alan we find an assess- 
ment of 12 hides reduced to 3|. 

In Berks the reduction seems chiefly to be found on 
ecclesiastical estates. On two manors of the Bishop of 
Salisbury there is a reduction from 62^ hides to 24, and on 
three of the Bishop of Winchester's, from 55 to 30. After 



112 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

working through the extensive property of Abingdon Abbey, 
I make the reduction of assessment on its manors to be nearly 
200 hides — namely, from 464^ to 267 J, but such calculations 
are always liable to a certain amount of error. 

Here is the very work for local research to undertake. 
Complete tables should be drawn out for each of these (bur 
counties, showing the character and comparative extent of 
the reduction, in each, of assessed value. The figures I have 
given sufficiently prove the need of such an inquiry and the 
prospect of obtaining valuable results when the necessary 
data are to hand. 

Meanwhile it may be mentioned that a cursory examina- 
tion of the assessment in the adjoining counties reveals no such 
process at work. In Kent there are some faint traces, but 
they are rather the exceptions that prove the rule. Indeed, 
it seems throughout the country to have been the systematic 
practice of the Conqueror to maintain the assessment at the 
same figure as it had been under the Confessor, and to grant 
neither reduction nor remission in consideration of deprecia- 
tion of value consequent on the incidents of the Conquest. 
Hence the complaints of the urban populations which meet 
us in the great Survey. Unfair and illusory as was in practice 
this stereotyped assessment for the ' geld,' it would seem to 
have been jealously maintained thoughout the Norman period, 
though the terrible devastation in the wars of the Anarchy 
compelled Henry the Second, as is proved by the evidence 
of the Pipe Rolls, to abandon this harsh principle and make 
large concessions for ' waste.' 

Such being the system, it is the more significant to find 
these striking reductions of assessment in a particular part of 
the country. Tempted by the geographical position of that 
district to connect this reduction with the historical events im- 
mediately succeeding the Conqueror's victory, one might 
suggest that as it was William's steadfast resolve to exercise to 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 113 

the full, as king of the English, the rights which belonged to 
the English crown, while it was equally the aim and object of 
his followers to resist that claim so far as it operated to their 
disadvantage, they might in the early days of the Conquest 
have extorted from him a remission of the obligations to 
which their grants were liable, a remission which he would 
cease to grant when he had actually secured the crown. 
This, however, would not explain the reduction of assess- 
ment on ecclesiastical estates, unless we assume that this was 
done to curry favour with the Church and allure the nation 
while the issue was still doubtful. But I fear that this explan- 
ation is not satisfactory in practice, and that we have a further 
difficulty in the noteworthy circumstance that the reduction 
applied to the manors * in demesne ' ; therefore it would seem 
that we must assign it to a date subsequent to the process of 
subinfeudation on the fiefs to which it applied. It should be 
mentioned that there is another inference to be drawn from 
this circumstance: namely, that, as the reduction applied spe- 
cially to the manors held * in demesne ' (see, for proof of this, 
the Sussex fiefs that I quoted), a reduction on the assessment 
of such manors would benefit the tenant-in-chief, while a 
reduction on that of the manors held of him by under-tenants 
would not Here, then, we have further light thrown on the 
respective liabilities of the tenant-in-chief and the under- 
tenant, and the way in which the burden of the impost fell.* 

The importance of grasping the real character of the re- 
duction here discussed is made manifest by the singfular con- 
clusions to which Mr. Loftie has been led by a misapprehension 
on this point Writing on the reduction of the assessment at 
Kennington from five hides to one and three quarters, and at 
Lambeth from ten to two and a half, he observes : 

■ The Dan^eld was clearly a tax paid by the under-tenant. They paid it 
whether they ^et^firmarii (see Domesday of St, PauTs) or knights (see a curious 
instance in point, for the latter, in Abingdon Cartulary^ ii. 136). 

VOL. I. I 



114 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

Even if we did not know of the probability of a great irruption of 
\ the river to cause this discrepancy, a flood of some kind would be 
one of the most obvious explanations. 

If we suppose therefore that, after long occupation and cultiva- 
tion, .... the land had gradually been won for the king ; that great 
embankments had been made and annual labour bestowed to keep 
them in repair ; but that, under the oppression of the Normans, the 
land was allowed again to fall a prey to the restless tide, we may, it 
is more than probable, have found a good working theory for the 
early history of the southern suburbs.^ 

We could not desire a better instance of the unfortunate 
results of copying from Domesday without an understanding 
of its language. 

In one exceptional case among these reductions we find 
Domesday quoting no less than four assessments. This is 
that of Beedon, Berks (see also p. lOo) : 

Tunc se defendebat pro x hidis, modo pro viii hidis. Tamenfuit 
pro XV hidis, sed Rex E. condonavit pro xi hidis ut dicunt (L 58 b). 

It is curious to find, in an assessment list of about the end 
of the twelfth century, the assessment here assigned to the 
Confessor (eleven hides) accepted.* 

It is important to add that these strange reductions became 
under Henry I. a matter of practical importance. For instance, 
in Berkshire, we read thus in the Pipe Roll of 1 1 30 : 

Robertus Greuesac. . . . debet lii marcas argenti et dimidiam ut 
Manerium de Burwardescote geldet amodo pro vi hidis. . . . 

VVillelraus girbertus debet xlvii marcas argenti et dimidiam ut 
M anerium de Burwardescota geldet amodo pro vi hidis.' 

On turning to Domesday we there read of the manor of 
* Boroardescote * : 

* History of London t ii. 267-8. • Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 312. 

• Hot. Pip, 31 Hen. I. Both men were to pay in instalments and to find 
sureties for doing so. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 115 

Ipse Comes tenet Boroardescote et Robertus de eo. Heraldus 
comes tenuit Tunc se defendebat pro xl hidis, modo pro vi hidis 
(i. 60). 

We learn, in the first place, from these entries that financial 
extortion was at work, and that it had taken the form of the 
crown repudiating the Domesday assessment of six hides. By 
the Domesday assessment I mean, of course, the strangely 
lowered assessment which I have just discussed above. That 
the under-tenants (who were the parties affected) had clearly 
been paying on this lowered assessment is proved, I take 
it, by their anxiety to have that assessment confirmed. It 
strengthens the impression that in these reductions we have a 
local and abnormal phenomenon when we find the crown, as 
here, refusing to recognise their validity. I gather that the 
agents of the crown, eager by hook or by crook to satisfy the 
king's greed, pitched upon such cases as these, and, proceeding 
by a kind of * quo warranto,* demanded the production of the 
Royal writ reducing the assessment of the manor.* In default 
of this they would claim payment on the pre-Conquestual as- 
sessment, here forty hides. The tenants, in their anxiety to 
retain the existing low assessment, would offer to commute 
the difference, while the crown, ever eager for prompt returns, 
would encourage them so to do by offering favourable terms. 
This would at once explain the payments recorded in the 
Pipe Roll.' 

Now to commute by a payment of a hundred marks (66/. 
1 3 J. 4//.) an assessment of 34 hides (the extreme increase 
which the crown could demand) would imply twenty years* 
purchase, if we reckon the tax at two shillings annually on the 
hide, the rate at which it was certainly levied at the period of 
this Pipe Roll. But twenty years' purchase was an impossible 
rate in those troubled times, and still more so in a case 

' Such a writ as the Survey, we have seen, refers to in the Gloucestershire cases 
• Compare the case of Etone {^oL Pip, 31 Hen. I. p. 125). 

I 2 



ii6 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

where the terms must have been favourable to the tenant in 
order to induce him to commute. What is the inference ? 
Surely, that at least at this period, the * hide ' must have been 
liable to some further payment than two. shillings a year. 
Whether this further payment was of the nature of a local 
levy, and if so, what, I will not presume to say. 

One would gladly learn if this action of the crown extended 
to other parts. It is just what one might have expected in 
the previous reign from Flambard. The mysterious story of 
his revised edition of the original Domesday Survey has never 
been really .explained.* Dr. Stubbs has cut the Gordian knot 
by suggesting it as * probable that the whole story is a misap- 
prehension, and is to be referred to the Domesday Survey.' • 
I am quite unable to concur in this solution of the problem. 
Not only is the story told of William Rufus and his minister, 
not of the Conqueror and of his, but the precise words which 
Ordericus employs ('incitans ut totius Angliae reviseret de- 
scriptionem ') prove that he was writing of a revision of Domes- 
day, for ' totius Angliae descriptio ' was the term specially ap- 
plied to the Great Survey of the Conqueror. Though I cannot 
myself solve the riddle, I think that by ' mensuris quas libe- 
rales Angli jussu Edwardi regis largiter distribuerant,' Orderi- 
cus must be referring to what Mr. Eyton has described as the 
'beneficial hidation of Anglo-Saxon times.' This obsolete 
assessment was, indeed, from the first, a stumbling-block to 
the Norman administration, and it is clear that one of the 
main objects of the Domesday Survey itself was to obtain a 
register of real, as distinct from assessed, value. This view is 
confirmed and illustrated by the great Carucage Survey of 
1 198. 

Before leaving this point, it may be observed that the dis- 
trict affected by. the reduction may have been lai^ely devas- 
tated at the time of the original invasion, but how far, if at 

' Ordericus Vi talis, viii. 8. ' ConsL Hist i. 303. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 117 

all, this may be held to account for the reduction in question, 
I do not profess to explain. 

It is difficult to overrate the importance of the Danegeld 
in its bearing on the study of Domesday. For the present, 
however, I have only space to allude to a single point, the 
light which it throws upon the hundred. Just as the Domes- 
day Survey itself was based upon inquests in the hundred 
courts of the land, so the hundred was the fiscal unit for the 
collection of Danegeld, as is proved by the Inquisitio Geldi^ 
and so when that geld was unpaid or in arrear, it was in the 
hundred court that the king's fine {gyldwiti) was imposed on 
the offending individual. But in a still more special and direct 
sense does Danegeld, in connection with the Domesday, 
throw light on the institution of the hundred. What are we 
to say to such an expression as that Bedford was assessed at 
' half a hundred ' ; ' Cambridge at * a hundred ' ; ' or Stamford 
at 'twelve hundreds and a half? With the latter case I 
have dealt in my paper on * Measures of Land/ and have 
shown that these hundreds being the small Danish ones of 
Lincolnshire, such an assessment would only represent a 
hundred and a half in the hidated districts. But just as the 
small Danish hundred is known to have contained 12 caru- 
cates, so I contend the English hundred must have been here 
reckoned for purposes of assessment as containing 100 hides. 
For obviously- assessment could not possibly be expressed in 
terms of the hundred unless that hundred represented some 
definite number of hides. I contend that by the hundred, in 



* *T.R.E. pro dimidio hundret se defendebat et modo facit in expeditione et 
in navibos ' (L 209). Dr. Stubbs erroneously states that * The town of Bedford 
paid towards ships as much as a third [jiV] of a hundred. Domesday i. 209 ' ( Const, 
Hist, L 105). Besides, there is nothing here about paying towards ships. The 
assessment merely determines the contingent of men (i.e. ten) due from the town in 
landfyrd and scypfyrd. 

« 'Pro uno hundret se defendebat T.R.E.' (i. 189). 



ii8 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

this sense, was meant a hundred hides. Do not suppose that 
I am here discussing that ancient problem the origin of the 
hundred. I merely contend that at this period it was, if you 
will, the legal fiction that a hundred contained a hundred 
hides. I have recently noted in the Survey a curious passage 
in point. We read of the Worcestershire hundred of Fish- 
borough that Evesham Abbey has there 65 hides, of which 
twelve are free (i.e. from geld), that there are also there 20 
hides of Dodentree, and that the fifteen hides of Worcester 
make up the hundred.* The document with which this pas- 
sage should be compared is the very curious Anglo Saxon 
record belonging to this period, and printed by Ellis as illus- 
trative of the hundred, and giving a long list of hundreds, 
each of them divided into 100 hides.* So, too, the episcopal 
Liberty of Oswaldslaw, to which I have alluded more than 
once, comprised originally three hundreds, and is entered in 
Domesday as containing 300 hides. I hold that my theory 
is confirmed by such cases as Shrewsbury, which in Domes- 
day is assessed for geld at 100 hides, or Chester, which is 
similarly assessed at 50. See how this bears on the whole 
question of burghal development under the English system. 
The Anglo-Saxon system having originally only two adminis- 
trative units, the hundred and township, or pagus and vicus ; 
when that feature, new to Anglo-Saxon life, the borough, 
gradually arose, it received not a new organisation but the 
old organisation of the hundred, adapted as closely as pos- 
sible. When the borough was too small to be treated as a hun- 
dred, it was awkwardly treated as a A^x^-hundred. In my own 
district we learn from DomeSday that Colchester was then 
a hundred of itself, but Ipswich and Maldon A/i(/"-hundreds. 
When these boroughs had to be assessed for the quota due 

• • In Fisseberge Hundret habet secclesia de Evesham LXV hidas. Ex his 
XII hidae sunt liberae. In illo Hundredo jacent XX hidae de Dodentreio, et xv 
hidae de Wircestre perficiunt hundret' (i. 176 b), 

^ Introduction to Donusday^ i. 184. 



DANEGELDAND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 119 

from them for Danegeld, the ' hundred ' boroughs, I hold, were 
assessed as at Shrewsbury at 100 hides, and the half-hundreds 
at 50, as at Chester. But this would be only where no special 
composition had been purchased or wrung from a weak and 
often needy government It is this practice of special arrange- 
ment which gives such complexity, and indeed obscurity, to 
Danegeld and Domesday finance in general so far as the 
boroughs are concerned. 

Exeter for instance, to take a striking case, had procured 
for itself the almost nominal assessment of five hides, and had 
further obtained the special privilege that it should only be 
called upon to pay when London, Winchester, and York paid. 
This is one of the most curious and tantalising glimpses that 
we are given in the whole of Domesday of the financial system 
of the period. It illustrates on the one hand, the vicious 
system in which liberty was represented by privilege and 
exemption— privilege and exemption at the cost of others ; 
and again it raises the striking question : Had London, Win- 
chester, and York the power of granting a Danegeld, or at 
their pleasure withholding it, when it was paid by the rest of 
England. Then further we have the mysterious commutation 
of Danegeld for a special contribution towards the payment 
of the king's housecarls, the prototypes, as you know, of our 
household troops. This practice, which brings the Danegeld 
itself into a still more direct connection with that famous 
Danish body-guard, deserves more attention than it has yet 
received. But I must pass on now for want of time. 

Keeping to the assessment of towns in Domesday, we find 
Bridport and Malmesbury assessed at 5 hides each, Dor- 
chester, Wareham, and Hertford at 10 hides, Worcester at 15 
(they were counted, as we have seen, in Fishborough hundred), 
Bath and Shaftesbury at 20, &c. Now what I want you to 
notice here is this. Like the hundred and the half-hundred, all 
these assessments, you see, are multiples of five hides. Why 



I20 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

was this ? It was because, just as in later days, our towns and 
counties had their special assessments for the quotas due 
from them to the land-tax and to the militia, so these Anglo- 
Saxon towns had to be assessed not only for the Danegeld 
but also for the territorial military service. Now five hides 
was the unit of assessment for the purpose of military service. 
Thus Domesday tells us of Exeter, that ' Quando expeditio 
ibat per terram aut per mare serviebat haec civitas quantum 
V hidae terrae.' That is to say that when the fyrd was raised, 
whether landfyrd or scypfyrd as the English would have put 
it, Exeter had to send the quota due from every five hides. 
Thus this military quota is proved to be a fixed quantity, and 
that fixed quantity was one man. We see this in the Berk- 
shire entry: 'Quando rex mittebat exercitum, de quinque 
hidis tantum unus miles ibat.' * When the king [i.e. King 
Edward] sent forth his host to war, one warrior was due from 
every five hides/ We see it again in the case of Malmes- 
bury : 

Quando rex ibat in expeditione vel terra vel mari habebat de hoc 
burgo aut xx solidos ad pascendos suos buzecarlos aut unum 
hominem ducebat secum pro honore v hidanim * (L 64 b). 

It was clearly of this borough, I may add, that Mr. Eyton 
was thinking when he wrote that 

In one case, as we remember it, a geldability of five hides was 
commuted for the service of providing an attendant on the king 
in any expedition he might make by sea or land. Such attendants 
were like our modern marines, and were usually called Bus-karles or 
Buthsecarles (Key to Domesday ^ p. 71). 

But this entry describes a commutation, not of the town's 
liability to * geld ' but of the town's liability to ' fyrd ' {expe- 
ditio) or military service. It ought to be compared with the 
entry at Lewes, where * si rex ad mare custodiendum sine se 

' Dr. Stubbs wrongly assigns this to Wilton. He writes : — ' Wilton [sent] one 
man for five hides' {ConsL HisL i. 117). 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 121 

suos mittere voluisset,' the burgesses raised 20 shillings, * et 
hos [xx solidos] habebant qui in navibus arma custodiebant ' 
(i. 26). And this unit of five hides takes us back, of course, to 
the five-hide qualification of the English thegn. 

I would even throw out the suggestion that, by a converse 
application of this principle, just as it was possible to ascertain 
from the number of hides at which a town was assessed, the 
quota of military service for which it was liable, so it might 
be possible from its military service to infer its assessed 
hidage. Thus the contingent of twenty men due to the fyrd 
from Oxford would represent an assessment of one hundred 
hides, while that of ten men from Warwick would represent 
an assessment of fifty, that is the half-hundred. 

But remember that this military service had its financial 
aspect as well, for by a special composition it could be com- 
muted, either for some service in kind, as in the case of 
Leicester sending four pack-horses instead of a contingent of 
sailors for the fleet, or for a definite sum of money, that sum, 
as we have seen, being twenty shillings as a substitute for 
each man. Then again, if the soldier was actually sent, the 
locality which sent him had to pay him a certain sum in 
advance. This, I would suggest, curiously anticipates the 
* coat and conduct * money of later times. In the Berkshire 
entry it is given as four shillings a man, which, it is specially 
added, is to be kept by him and not given up to the king. 
But you are doubtless aware how, a few years later, the 
notorious Flambard unscrupulously availed himself of this 
very practice as a means of financial extortion by summoning 
the host to meet at Hastings, and then making them hand 
over the sums thus provided (at that time ten shillings), when 
the cunning official disbanded them at once, to make their 
way home as best they could 

The subject of Domesday finance and assessment is, in- 



122 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

deed, notwithstanding its great obscurity, of intense and in- 
exhaustible interest, not only for itself, but also for the extra- 
ordinary amount of light it casts indirectly upon other matters, 
and indeed on the whole condition of the country. I have, 
however, only time to-day to give you one or two instances. 

Let us first look at this remarkable entry, tlie most in- 
structive of its kind in the whole Survey, appended like a 
* rider ' to the Domesday Commissioners* report of their 
inquest at Shrewsbury. 

Dicunt angligense burgenses de Sciropesberie multum grave sibi 
esse quod ipsi reddunt totum gelduni sicuti reddebatur T.R.E. 
quamvis castellum comitis occupaverit li masuras, at alise l masurae 
sint vastae, et xliii francigenae burgenses teneant masuras geldantes 
T.R.E. et abbatise quam facit ibi comes dederit ipse xxxix burgenses 
olim similiter cum aliis geldantes. Inter totum sunt cc masurse vii 
minus quae non geldant (i. 252). 

I say that this is the most instructive entry of its kind in 
the whole Survey, because it sets fully and clearly before us a 
grievance of the native urban populations, consequent on the 
events of the Conquest, of which, throughout Domesday, we 
catch occasional glimpses, and which it is absolutely necessary 
to grasp. This was the exaction of the full amount of the 
' geld * assessed upon the town, although the burgesses from 
whom it had to be raised had greatly diminished in number. 
The causes, in the case of Shrewsbury, assigned for this 
diminution are : 

(i) Burgages of which the Earl's castle now occupied 

the site . . . . . . . -51 

(2) Burgages lying * waste ' 50 

(3) Burgages held by * Frenchmen ' . . . -43 

(4) Burgages made over to the Abbey ... 39 

183" 

Accordingly, say the ' English bom ' burgesses, there are 
193 bui^ages (masura) less contributing towards the *geld' 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 123 

now (1086) than there were T.R.E. It will be noticed that 
there is here a discrepancy of ten, beyond the possibility of 
dispute. This is the more suspicious when we find, as we do, 
a similar case at Malmesbury : 

In burgo Malmesberie habet rex xxvi masuras hospitatas et xxv 
masuras in quibus etc. . . . Unaquseque hamm masurarum reddit x 
denarios de gablo, hoc est simul xliii [sic] solidos et vi denarios 
(i. 64 ^). 

For 51 burgages at 10^. each would represent a total, not 
of 43X. 6rf., but of 42s. 6d, Here, then, also, the Domesday 
scribe must have made a careless slip, on the showing of his 
own figfures. Probably he wrote (if the error was clerical) 
* XLIII ' for • XLII.' 

So, at Shrewsbury, the error may be either arithmetical 
or clerical. If the latter, it would be accounted for by the 
insertion or omission of an * X.' 

Taking now seriatim the causes assigned for the diminu- 
tion, we have first the construction of the castle. This is a 
cause which, as Domesday shows us, operated in almost every 
important town.^ But I would take this occasion of pointing 
out that it may have continued in operation even after 
Domesday. Thus we read in the Great Survey that, at 
Gloucester, * sedecim domus erant ubi sedet Castellum ' (i. 162) ; 
but in the fragment of the Evesham Abbey Survey (1097-- 
I loi) we read, of the three hundred houses which (T.R.E.) had 
stood on the King's demesne in Gloucester, ' infra castellum 
manserunt de hiis CCC XXIV.' That is to say, the si^iteen 
houses which had been removed for the castle had now in- 
creased to twenty-four.* 

The second cause assigned by the burgesses was that 

' See also Mr. Freeman's note on < Castles and Destruction in Towns * {Norm* 
Conq. vol. v). 

' There would seem to have been also a great increase in the number of < wasted' 
houses, proving that this process was by no means limited to the period imme- 
diately succeeding the Conquest. 



124 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

fifty burgages (of those which had formerly contributed) were 
now (1086) lying waste (* vastae *). This term ' waste ' is one 
of the pitfalls of the Survey, though not so much so as * con- 
suetudo * which appears to cover (in addition to customary 
rights and laws) every form of service and money-payment 
that was due by fixed custom. To learn how many causes, in 
towns alone, could be implied by the term ' waste,' we must 
turn to such entries as these at Lincoln and Norwich. 
Lincoln. Norwich. 

Sunt modo Waste cc [man- Isti [burgenses] fugientes et 
siones] anglico numero [L e.] alii remanentes omnino sunt 
ccxL . . . De predictis Wastis Vastati, partim propter foris- 
mansionibus, propter castellum fecturas Rogerii comitis, partim 
destructae sunt clxvl Reliquae propter arsuram, partim propter 
Lxxiiii Wastatae sunt, extra geltum regis, partim propter 
metam castelli, non propter Walerannum (ii. 117 3). 
oppressionem vicomitum et 
ministrorum, sed propter infortu- 
niam et paupertatem et ignium 
exustionem (i. 336). 

Poverty and fire are not among the causes specially mentioned 
at Shrewsbury, but the above entries will show that they may 
be included beneath the term 'waste.' Of poverty there is a 
good instance at Bridport, where * XX domus sunt ita desti- 
tutae quod qui in eis manent geldum solvere non valent/ * We 
must also remember that the term ' waste ' does not neces- 
sarily imply destruction (which is occasionally specified by 
name), but merely a desolate or uninhabited condition. 

The third cause assigned by the burgesses is that forty-three 
•Frenchmen* {FrancigeruE) now (1086) held burgages, which 
T.R.E. had contributed their share towards the geld. That is 
to say that these said burgages had ceased to contribute 
their share since they had passed into the hands of the 

> See for Mr. Freeman's singular misrepresentation of this case, ih^ Antiquary 
for December 1886. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 125 

foreigners. Now I deem this statement to be of great im- 
portance as bearing on one of the so-called Laws of William 
the Conqueror. By this law, all those * Francigenae ' who had 
taken up their residence in England before the Conquest were 
ordered to pay * lot and scot ' with their fellow-burgesses, as 
they had presumably done in the days of King Edward.* I 
infer from this that those * Francigenae ' who had settled here 
after the Conquest could claim exemption from such * lot and 
scot,' and that those who had settled here under the Confessor 
were attempting without right to claim it for themselves 
also, against which attempt this law was directed. The right 
to this exemption would exactly explain the precise state- 
ment of the Shrewsbury burgesses, by whom, apparently, its 
existence is not disputed, though they complain of its indirect 
effect upon themselves. We find it in operation again at 
York, where, among the burgages that ceased to contribute, 
we read * CXLV mansiones tenent Francigenae * (i. 298).* And 
at Hereford we find a careful distinction between the native 
and the immigrant burgesses : ' anglici burgenses ibi manentes 
habent suas priores consuetudines, Francigenae vero burgenses 
habent per XII denarios omnes forisfacturas suas,' etc. (i. 179)' 
Sometimes the immigrants settled in a separate quarter by 
themselves. Thus, under the heading *Franci de Norwic' (ii. 
1 18), we learn that in the new quarter (' in novo burgo *) there 
were forty-one * burgenses franci ' resident at the time of the 
Survey. At Nottingham there was a similar ' novus burgus ' 
(i. 280). And in this fact recorded in Domesday we have, I 

' 54. ^De jure Normannorum qui ante adventum Guilielmi cives fuerant 
AnglicanL Et omnis Francigena qui tempore Edwardi propinqui nostri fuit in 
Anglia particeps consuetudinum Anglorum, quod ipsi dicunt an hlote et an scote, 
persolvat secundum legem Anglonim.* 

' At Wallingford the description is transferred from the dwellings to their in- 
habitants: — 'sunt XXII masune francigenae* (i. 56). 

■ At Southampton (i. 52), as at Pevensey, the Conquest had led to an influx of 
population. But here, too, the distinction is maintained :—*Postquam rex W. 
venit in Angliam sunt hospitati in Hantone LXV francigenae et xxxi angligense. 



126 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

may observe, the explanation of the existence of 'the two 
boroughs ' which meet us, later in the Nottingham Records, 
the * French ' and the * English.* * At Shrewsbury also, from 
which we set out, we find two communities, each with their 
own customs, down to recent times. Here, then, we have a 
fresh illustration of the marvellous instructiveness of Domes- 
day. 

The fourth cause brought forward by the bui^esses is the 
grant of 39 burgesses by the Earl to his Abbey,' they having for- 
merly paid their share towards the geld (* olim similiter cum aliis 
geldantes '). This entry is of value as illustrating a grievance, 
a subject of contention between ecclesiastics and burgesses, of 
which there are in Domesday not a few traces, and which — as, 
for instance, at Leicester and Exeter— proved for long after- 
wards a fruitful source of strife. This was the diversion of ' the 
king's geld' into the pockets of ecclesiastical persons, who con- 
tinued to levy the impost on their tenants^ but pleaded their ex- 
emption from liability to geld in justification of their retaining 
the money for themselves instead of handing it over. The ideal 
at which the Church aimed is well set forth by such a passage 
as this : ' Hujus Sancti terrae nunquam reddiderunt geldum nisi 
ipsi aecclesiae ' (i. 121). When the king's geld was thus di- 
verted, it was said to go into ' the abbot's pouch ' — * in mar- 
supium Abbatis ' is the actual term employed in the Burton 
Cartulary — and the fact that it was then withdrawn from 
the total proceeds of what we might term the rate raised by 
the burgesses, obviously increased the burden of the remain- 
ing portion of the community. Hence such a provision as 
that in the charter of Henry H., early in his reign, to Not- 
tingham : * Et quicunque in burgo manserit, cujuscunque 

' Each of them electing one of the bailiffs, because their customs were different 
(* pro diversitate consuetudinum in eisdem burgis habitarum '). 

^ He had paid over twelve pounds' worth (it would have been described later 
on as 12 Mibrates') of burgesses and mills :— * Tantum de suis burgensibus et mo- 
linis quod xil libras rcddit monachis ' (i. 252 b). 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 127 

feodi sit, reddere debet simul cum burgensibus taillagia et 
defectus burgi adimplere.' Hence, too, such struggles as that 
at Leicester, where it was not till 128 1 that the burgesses 
gained their point, that the Abbot's tenants should *scot' 
with them,' or at Exeter, where the Bishop and the Mayor 
were still wrangling in the fifteenth century over the episcopal 
fee of St Stephen's, SydwelL* Hence also the jealous care 
with which the fact was entered in Domesday when the tenants 
of the Church fee ' scotted ' with the citizens, and did not pay 
their ' geld ' to their ecclesiastical lord. Thus at Chester, out 
of fifty hides at which the city is assessed, the Bishop's fee 
was liable for two and a half hides — that is, one-twentieth of 
the whole amount — and, it is carefully added in in Domesday, 
*hae [hidae] geldabant cum civitate' (i. 263). So also, at 
Shrewsbury itself, we read : 

Episcopus de Cestre habuit in Sciropesberie xvi masuras, et 
totidem burgenses geldant cum aliis burgensibus, Modo sunt wastas 
ex eis X masurae (i. 252). 

It is most interesting to find from the description of the 
city, that this estate of the Bishop was assessed at one hide 
out of the hundred hides at which the whole city was 
assessed. Five other ecclesiastical and one lay fee, were also 
responsible for 8f hides between them.' We have probably 
another case in point, in the Bishop's fee at Colchester, of 
which the constituent parts are described as * non reddentes 
consuetudinem /r^/^r j^^/«i« nisi episcopo' (ii. 11), where 
(assuming that in this district ' scotum ' was occasionally used 
for * geld,') * it was, we see, specially reserved that the Bishop's 

* Thompson's Municipal Antiquities^ p. 68. 

* ShillingforeTs Letters. Camden Society. 

* St. Alcmund's fee contained 21 burgesses. It was assessed at * 11 hidas de 
c hidis quae computantur in geldo civitatis ' (i. 253). 

* So, at Ipswich there were * waste ' houses, * quae T. R. E. scottahant ad geltum 
regis.' Heie we have another instance of the perplexing variety in Domesday 
phraseology. 



128 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

tenants should * scot * with the burgesses. Perhaps the most 
striking instance is to be found at Lincoln, where the Bishop's 
fee (' maneriolum/) comprised, inter alia, three ' mansiones,' 
on one of which he could retain the 'geld,' while the other 
two had to pay over theirs to the common fund of the citizens, 
and two churches with 78 ' mansiones ' all of which had 
similarly to pay their ' geld ' not to him but to the citizens.' * 
I have been thus particular in dealing with this entry be- 
cause the point is one which has been little, if at all, noticed. 
It has now been shown how this grievance arose in the number 
of geld-paying burgesses diminishing in the troubles of the 
Conquest while the quota of Danegeld exacted remained the 
same in each case. Thus the impost in many cases fell with 
crushing weight, especially where, as at Chester, the assess- 
ment was abnormally high. Thus it was, also, that, as we 
learn from Domesday, the English burgesses anxiously pro- 
tested against any reduction of their rateable area. At 
Colchester, for instance : i 

Burgenses calumpniantur v hidas de Lexsendena ad consuetu- 
dinem et scotum civitatis (ii. 104). 

That is to say, they claimed that this land ought to contribute 
towards their quota on its assessment of five hides, or, in 
other words, that its holders should * scot and lot ' with them. 
It is strange to see how completely Mr. Freeman has mis- 
understood this instructive entry, which he imagined to imply 
a claim to * common lands.* * We seem to have a similar case 
at Chester, where the Survey records the verdict of the shire- 
moot that certain land * semper fuit in consuetudine regis et 
comitis sicut [terra] aliorum burgensium' (i. 262 b). At 

* ' Remigius episcopus habet I maneriolum ... in civitate Lincoliae cum saca 
et soca et cum Thol et Theim super ill mansiones similiter et super 11 aecclesias et 
super Lxxviii mansiones ^imWiiei prater geldum regis quod dani cum burgensihus 
. . . De tribus superioribus mansionibos I quieta ab omnibus rebus [est], due vero 
sunt in geldo cum burgensibus * (i. 336). 

» Arch. Joum, xxxiv. 68. 



I 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 129 

Malmesbury we find them placing it on record that the abbot's 
nine tenants * foris burgum .... geldant cum burgensibus * 
(i. 64 i.) At York, they record of the surrounding lands, that 
• in geldo civitatis sunt quater xx et nn carucatae terrae, et 
unaquaeque geldabat quantum una domus civitatis ' (i. 298), 
and at Lincoln, that Torksey and Hardwick were between 
them responsible for one-fifth of the *geld' at which the 
city was assessed. Moreover, special complaint is made of 
several landowners by name, including an earl, a countess, a 
bishop, and an abbot, who have not contributed towards the 
' geld,' as it was their duty to da* Here again we have the 
new-comers, especially the more potent among them, en- 
deavouring to evade their distasteful liabilities. 

The grievance which I have thus lengthily discussed 
illustrates the persistence in this matter of finance of the great 
Anglo-Saxon principle of collective liability? For we must 
carefully distinguish between these payments for which the 
community was responsible as a whole, and those for which 
each individual was responsible for himself, and for himself 
alone. In the matter of the * geld,' the liability was necessarily 
collective because the assessment was upon the borough as a 
whole, not on individual burgesses. In this 'collective 
liability' to the treasury we have the explanation of the 
remarkable passage in the ' Historia Fundationis * of St. John's, 
Colchester, relating to the reign of William Rufus, that : 

Terras damnatorum. . . . dum nemo coleret, exigebantur tamen 
pUnaliter fiscalia, et hac de causa populus valde gravabatur. Has 
ergo terras Eudo sibi vindicavit, ut pro his fisco satisfaceret et 
populum eatenus alleviaret. (Monasticon,) 

■ ' Hi sabscripti non dederunt geldum regis sicut debuissent * (i. 336). 

' It is just possible that in this same principle we may have the clue to the 
power of enforcing tenants to keep up their houses, and prevent their becoming 
ruinous, of which power we have distinct evidence in much later times (cf. Anti- 
quary, xii. 201, 278). The original ground of intervention would be the increased 
liability of the other residents if such houses became ruinous (*vastae'). This 
suggestion has I believe never been made. 

VOL. I. K 



I30 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

Here we have the fiscal result of land falling out of cultivation 
or, as Domesday would express it, becoming ' waste,' nor 
could anything better illustrate the grievance of the Shrews- 
bury burgesses. But so hopelessly has Mr. Freeman mis- 
understood this passage,' that in order to explain his own ex- 
planation, he has unluckily attempted to rationalise the story, 
and, in so doing, has plunged into deeper trouble than before, 
making in all, as I have elsewhere shown, some half a dozen 
separate mistakes.* 

It may perhaps assist towards a clearer comprehension of 
this really important subject if we take an instance from our 
own days. This very year there has been a hot agitation in 
the city parish of St. Botolph Without on the subject of the 
tithe-rate raised to provide the fixed sum annually due to the 
tithe-owner. The complaint of the parishioners as reported 
in the daily papers of the date ' curiously resembles that of 
the English burgesses of Shrewsbury just eight centuries 
before. 

Ratepayers complain very strongly that . . . owing to depression 
of trade many houses are vacant, and others have been cleared away 
for railway extension, with the result that the residents who remain 
find the demands made upon them to make Mr. — 's 6,500/. grow 
heavier and heavier. 

And as the men of Shrewsbury looked to the Conqueror for 
special intervention in their case, so did these parishioners 
ask for it in theirs, by special petition to the Prime Minister. 
The railway station here plays the same part as the Earl's 
castle in the days of the Conqueror, in involving the clearing 
away of the houses. Some houses are empty ; of others the 
inhabitants are poor. In short, as Domesday would put it 
the district is largely ' vastata.' In another case, as I remember 
it, a complaint was made, not long ago, that a number of 

' William Rufm^ pp. 464>5. ' Antiquary^ vi. 98-9. 

" 5 November 1886. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 131 

small houses were burnt down or damaged in a destructive 
fire. The inhabitants, thus * vastati/ pleaded for a remission 
of the poor-rate, but it was found, I believe, impossible to 
make any remission. The ' struggle ' to pay, in these cases, 
and the complaints of ruinous exaction enables us more clearly 
to understand such expressions as that some of the Norwich 
burgesses were 'vastati . . . propter geltum regis,* or the 
earlier moan of the Church of Worcester against that 
* maximum et fere importabile tributum ' * exacted by Swegen, 
when they had to sell almost all that they had to meet the 
demands of the tax-collectors. Indeed, our thoughts are 
carried further back still, back to that 'tributum' of the 
Roman Empire, which, lying on its subject populations with 
a crushing and a grinding weight, reduced them to slavery or 
maddened them to revolt. 

But to return to the ' geld.' After all, there is something 
fearfully eloquent in these entries of * waste,* of devastation, 
these entries in which the great and terrible Survey bears 
witness to the doings of its own maker. I am not speaking 
now of the ravages of war, or of the infinitely worse ravages 
of cold-blooded and merciless vengeance. I am thinking of 
such glimpses of devastation under a rule of law and order as 
we obtain from such typical entries as these: — 'waste,* on 
account of the king's castle ; * waste,' on account of the king's 
forest ; ' waste,' on account of the king's taxes. Far be it 
from me to malign the memory of one of the great rulers of 
men ; but the Conqueror was, in very truth, a man of blood 
and iron. And I think that in the lurid light which these 
entries cast on his career, we should be able to make some 
just allowance for the feelings of our English forefathers when 

• Compare Morant*5 description (1748) of the * very great distress' in a poor 
parish where the poor rate had become * extremely, nay almost intolerably, charge- 
able/ so much so that in 1694 the landowners were paying in rates * the full value 
of their rents,' 

K 2 



132 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

they saw in this dreaded saviour of society as it were a second 
Attila sent in vengeance for their sins. 

There is yet one point to be dealt with before we can 
leave the subject of this paper. We have discussed the gdd 
of Domesday ; we have yet to discuss its gafoL 

Now there is one point of such vital importance, that until 
we have once firmly grasped it, it is useless to approach 
Domesday finance. I refer to the fundamental and cardinal 
distinction between the services and payments due to the 
lord, and the services or payments due to the king — the 
seigneurial dues and the crown dues. A moment's thought 
will show you that this distinction is self-evident Yet our 
greatest authorities have been led astray by the neglect of 
this simple point. No one, for instance, can read Mr* Eyton's 
' Key to Domesday ' without perceiving that in the case of 
Dorset he persistently and invariably confuses throughout the 
tax paid to the king qua king, and the rent paid to the king 
qua lord. It is specially in the towns that this point is of . 
importance. Broadly speaking, the state of things which 
meets us in the Survey is this. The king has rights and 
claims, as king, over the entire town. But, in addition to this, 
he has rights and claims over a special portion, generally by 
far the larger portion, of the town, as lord. That special 
portion is styled his * dominium.' Thus, at Wareham, out of 
285 houses T.R.E., the Survey describes 143 as *in dominio 
regis,' while 62 were in the fee of the Abbot of Fontanell 
(' Sanctus Wandregisilus *), and 80 in those of other holders 
(' alii barones '). And at Shaftesbury, out of its 257 houses 
T.R.E., 104 were ' in dominio regis,' while in that of the 
Abbess of Shaftesbury were 153. Within this 'dominium' 
the holders of burgages, sometimes styled the king's bur- 
gesses, would pay their burgage-rents to him as lord, just as the 
holders of burgages outside that ' dominium ' would pay their 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 133 

burgage-rents to their own respective lords. You will see then, 
that to treat these burgage-rents, as Mr. Eyton does, as a ' tax,' 
is to miss the whole point of borough finance in Domesday. 

Mr. Eyton, in his introductory essay, makes another singu- 
lar error. * The individual burgess,' he writes, ' when holding 
immediately, was responsible to the sheriff or other fiscal officer 
for his quota of rent, or taxes, or local burdens. But in other 
cases, where the tenure of burgages was not immediate, the 
party responsible to the baron would be that earl, or bishop, 
or abbot, or baron, whose tenants the burgesses happened to 
be, and who received the respective burgage-rents* (p. 51). 
That is to say these holders had to pay over to the crown the 
burgage-rents which they received from their tenants, instead 
of keeping them for themselves. How erroneous is that view 
is shown by Mr. Ey ton's own words on p. 72, where he admits 
the ' burgage-rents ' received by the Abbess of Shaftesbury 
formed a main factor of the value of her Shaftesbury estate. 

Now the term for rents so paid, whether to a private lord, 
or to the king himself as lord, was gablutn or landgablum. 
Thus our greatest authority of all — I mean, of course, Dr. 
Stubbs — is clearly in error, when he assigns to gablutn, in the 
glossary to his * Select Charters,' the meaning, ' a tax.' 

Gablum, the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon gafol, plays 
an important part in Mr. Seebohm's learned theories. He 
traces it from its origin in the German gaben (* to give ') 
through its sense of ' tribute,' to that of * payments in money 
or kind, or work rendered by way of rent* (p. 78). He shows 
that as early as the seventh century it is to be found in the 
' Laws of Ine,' as designating ' the customary tribute ' due 
from the tenant to the lord (pp. 142-3), and that in the Recti- 
tudiftes of the tenth (?) century its meaning is most clearly 
defined (pp. 132, 140). Its development I conceive to have 
been as follows. From being a general term, denoting tribute 
or rent, in money, kind, or labour, it acquired by composition 



134 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

a more exact denotation. Thus we learn from the Rectitu- 
dines that the * gebur * paid his gafol (or gablum) (i) in money. 
This was known as * g^SoX-pence ' (or pennies). (2) In kind ; 
as honey-gdSoX, mea^-gdiM, o/e-gSiM, and gBfol-iarley, to which 
we may add from the Survey itself (i. 27, 28) gafol-Jiw«/, the 
' porci de gablo ' of Sussex, being the annual ' tribute * of swine 
paid by the swineherd to his lord. (3) In labour, as gafol- 
^r/A (ploughing), g^tol-wood (chopping), gafol-mowing, gafol- 
fencing^ and gavel-r^, which last term I have noted in the 
Register (still in MS.) of St. John's Abbey, Colchester. In 
the ordinary course of social development there was a ten- 
dency, even from early times, to commute these two latter 
kinds oi gafol {ox money payments. Hence the term gablum 
(or landgablunt) became practically equivalent to a quitrent 
paid in money alone. Thus in Domesday we read of the 
king's manor of Cheddar, after the usual description of the 
ploughlands, * VII gablatores reddunt XVII solidos * (i. 87) : 
that is to say that there were seven tenants who held their 
lands by payment of money-rent {gablum) amounting to 
seventeen shillings.* Again, passing from Somerset to Kent, 
we find the 'gablum rusticorum' mentioned (i. 12 b) among 
the sources of revenue in a manor belonging to St. Peter's of 
Ghent. These expressions should be compared with tlie entry 
in the Liber Niger of Peterborough {circ. 1125) that, at Col- 
lingham, 20 villeins * reddunt de gabulo^er annum IIII libras.' 
Let us now turn to another record, the Kentish Domesday of 
the Church of Canterbury. I would observe in doing so that 
it is most desirable that the date of this as well as of the 
other earliest Surveys should be ascertained as exactly as 
possible. In this case it is stated by the learned author of 
the Report on the Chapter Records (8th Report Hist. MSS. 
i. 315 b), that this Survey was ' compiled, apparently, immedi- 

• See also my notes in the Historical Review on Mr. VinogradafTs distinction 
between * gafol ' and * mol.' 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 135 

ately zSt&cMic Domesday Domini Regis I and again that * internal 
evidence indicates that the compilation was made near the be- 
ginning of the twelfth century.' It will be seen that there is, 
perhaps, if I may venture to say so, a slight discrepancy be- 
tween these two statements. Now the valuable feature of this 
Survey, though it is not mentioned in the Report, appears to 
me to be this. In the case of Edesham, which is given as a 
specimen, the Exchequer Domesday merely states that the 
manor renders (' reddit *) 46/. \6s, 4^! (for the 26s. 4^. of the 
Report is an error), whereas the Kentish Domesday gives us 
the two constituents of this total, stating that it is worth 
(' valet *) 30/. ' de firma,' and * de gablo reddit * 16/. 16^. 4^. I 
need scarcely point out how important a bearing this passage 
has on the vexed question of what are known as Domesday 
* values.* To understand it aright we must bear in mind that it 
was the favourite practice of monastic bodies to let out their 
manors ' ad firmam ' to a * firmarius,' who paid them a fixed 
annual sum. But we further learn from the Burton Cartulary, 
which I select on account of its early date, that it was not 
unusual to except certain sources of profit from the firma, 
and to receive their income separately. Thus Eadric held Bran- 
stone * ad firmam ' from the Abbot of Burton at 5/. a year, 
' preter lucum et haias et preter terram quae fuit Ormi et preter 
terram quae fuit Tracemusche, quae omnia retinuit Abbas in 
manu sua ' (p. 19). So too Godric and Wulfric held Leigh ' ad 
firmam ' at 5/. a year, but * praeter haec, extra firmam eorum ' 
was a tenant who paid his rent separately. This may serve 
to illustrate a point insufficiently, if at all, understood — namely, 
that the firma need by no means, in towns, have always in- 
cluded every source of revenue. For instance, at Colchester 
we are told of one payment * hoc totum jacet ad firmam regis,' 
of a second * hoc pertinent {sic\ ad firmam regis,* but of a 
third *hoc non est ad firmam ' (ii. 107). That is to say, as I 
understand, that the first two were, but the third was not, 



136 DANECELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

among those sources of revenue which were compounded for 
in the firma. It may perhaps be mentioned, while on the 
subject, that the firma of Colchester included the profits 
arising from the monetarii and from the King's Wood. When 
there ceased to be monetarii and when the king took his 
wood into his own hands, ^^ firma was reduced pro rata for 
each. Thus the firma burgi may be looked on as, to some 
extent, the aggregate of several yfrw^. 

But now let us approach the towns in Domesday in the 
light of these conclusions, bearing in mind my explanation of 
gablum as the rent arising from the tenants of burgages within 
the king's dominium. In Southampton we have a good case 
in point : 

In Burgo de Hantune habet rex in dominio quater xx homines 
iiii minus qui reddunt vii libras de gablo terre et totidem reddi- 
derunt T.R.E. Horum xxvii reddunt quisque viii denarios. Duo 
vero XII denarios, et alii l numero reddunt quisque vi denarios (L 52). 

That is to say : 

In the borough of Southampton the king has in his dominium 76 
men who pay him seven pounds in landgable, and paid the same 
amount T.R.E. 27 of these pay 8^. each, two pay 12^., and fifty 
others 6^. each. 

How Domesday works out its sum I will not attempt to 
say. I am only here concerned with its language. Again, 
take Pevensey as a typical case : — 

In Burgo Pevenesel T.R.E. fuerunt xxiiii burgenses in dominio 
regis et reddebant de gablo xiiii solidos et vi denarios. De theloneo 
xx solidos. De portu xxxv solidos. De pastura vii solidos et 111 
denarios (i. 20 b). 

Here we have a passage of singular clearness. At Pevensey 
the Confessor had in his dominium 24 burgesses paying him 
I4f. 6d, a year in gafol, that is in burgage rents (being an 
average of T\d. apiece), 20s. for market dues, 35^. for harbour 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 137 

dues, and 7s. $d. for their use of the so-called common pasture, 
for which, as at Oxford, we must not forget, they had to pay 
their lord: The other payments were, I take it, evidently of 
the nature, severally, oi firmly as the port dues and market 
dues must have varied from year to year. Notice that besides 
these 24 burgesses in dotninio, there were 28 others belonging 
to four other lords. Now the special interest of this case is 
that the Conqueror had transferred to his half-brother, the 
Count of Mortaine, all the rights which he held, as lord, in 
Pevensey, that is, the dominium with its appendages. Thus, 
the lord of that Oominium was now a subject But the pro- 
fits of that dominium having been received by the Confessor, 
not as king but as lord, the same seigneurial dues would now 
be received by his successor. Accordingly we find the Count 
in receipt of the gablum (or bui^age-rent) in that dominium. 
And so rapidly had Pevensey increased, in consequence, I 
presume, of the increased traffic with Normandy consequent 
on the Conquest, and of the Count's residence at the castle, 
that the 25 burgesses in the dominium of the Confessor (27 
when it was granted to the Count) were now represented by 
60, paying not I4f. 6rf., but 39J. ' de gablo.* Notice that this 
represents an average burgage rent of y\d. as against 7\d. 
under the Confessor, a curiously close approximation, as it 
also is to the amount at Southampton. The Tkeloneum^ or 
market dues, had increased in proportion — namely, from 35^. 
to 4/., the amount in each case representing, I take it, a com- 
position. Nor was this all, for the holders of burgages outside 
the dominium had increased from 28 to 51, the list being 
headed by the eight burgages which paid their rents (averaging 
^\d, each) to the monks of Mortaine. Perhaps the most in- 
structive passage on this subject in Domesday is that which 
describes the ' gablum * of the various estates in Wallingford 
(i. 56-7). On King Edward's ' dominium * there stood 276 
•hagae reddentes XI libras de geldo,' an average of ()\d. 



138 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 



The Bishop held twenty-seven, paying him twenty-five 
shillings, an average of i id. In this case all the rents are 
recorded with exceptional care, some of the houses being 
described as ' hags ' and some as ' masurs/ 

I have been thus particular in dealing with these two cases, 
because they enable us to understand the language in which 
Domesday refers to other towns, of which the account is not so 
full. Thus when we read that T.R.E. Lewes ' reddebat Vi libras 
et nil solidos et HI obolos de gablo et de theloneo ' (i. 26), 
or that T.R.E. * reddebat Oxeneford pro theloneo et gablo et 
aliis omnibus consuetudinibus per annum,* etc. etc. (1. 154), 
we recognise the * theloneum ' and the * gablum * of Pevensey, 
and know that the latter was the amount of the burgage rents 
from the dominium. Again, turn to Huntingdon (i. 203). 
* De toto hoc burgo exibat T.R.E. de landgablo X librae.* This, 
as in the other cases, refers exclusively to the burgage-rents. 
Accordingly we read *De hoc censu remanet nunc super 
XX mansiones ubi castrum est XVI solidi et Vlii denarii.* 
Referring to the preceding column, we find the same fact 
alluded to— namely, that these 20 houses had stood on the 
ground now occupied by the castle, and had paid annually 
i6j. 8^/. ' ad firmam regis * : that is, you will perceive, an average 
rent of lorf. each. But the special importance of the Survey of 
Huntingdon, as bearing upon borough finance in Domesday, 
is this : on the one hand, here alone in the Survey, we meet 
with the expression y?rw^a burgi ; on the other, we can, fortu- 
nately, in the case of the borough, speak with absolute 
certainty not only of the amount of its total payments, but 
also of each constituent factor. These factors were as follows : 



Landgable . 
Firma Burgi 
Borough Mill 
3 Monetarii 

Total . 



£10 

30 

3 

2 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 139 

Now the earl received one third of each of these four 
sources of profit. Thus he took 15/., leading the king 30/. 
But the point that I want you to observe is that the so-called 
firtna burgi is not, as we have always been taught to believe, 
a composition for the total profits of the town, but only in 
this case, for some di the profits. I have already drawn at- 
tention, you may remember, to this important distinction, and 
I would remind you of that passage in the Kentish Domes- 
day in which we found the gablum entered as a payment 
outside, and independent of, ^^firma^ just as we do here at 
Huntingdon. The account of Leigh, in the Burton Cartulary, 
with Its * preter hec, extra firmam ' should also be compared 
with this of Huntingdon. The exception of the gablum from 
theyfr;«tf burgi is the more remarkable, because that firma 
has been looked upon as essentially a composition for the 
gablum. Thus Dr. Stubbs describes the firma burgi as * a 
rent paid to the crown from the borough,* and proceeds to 
speak of * the burgage tenants, from whose burgages the rent 
was originally due, and from which it must, if raised legally, 
be paid.' * 

Without taking you through every mention oi gablum 
in the Domesday towns, I would point out that at Cambridge, 
as at Huntingdon, the profit arising from the landgavel is esti- 
mated separately : * De consuetudinibus hujus villae vil librae 
per annum et de landgable Vil librae et II orae et duo denarii.' 
Here the 7/. for the consuetudines would doubtless represent 
^ firma. Chester, too, I must ask you to glance at. Here 
we read, among its customs, * Qui ad terminum quod debebat 
gablum non reddebat X solidis emendabat.' This by-law, as 
we might term it, imposing a fine of lar. on him who failed to 
pay up his gafol at the appointed time, should be compared 

* Though ^^ firma burgi thus at Huntingdon specially excludes that source of 
revenue from which Dr. Stubbs {ut supra) presumes it to have been essentially 
raised, it seems to be implied by Domesday that the 10/. for landgable represented 
a separate composition {firma) for the rents. 



I40 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

with these doggrel lines, preserved in the ' Diary of Abraham 
de la Pryme/ as recited by the crier at Scarborough, in a 
formal Corporation procession : 

Whay 1 Whay 1 Whay ! » 
Pay your gavelage, ha ! 
Between this and Michaelmas-day, 
Or youll be fined, I say ! 

This it will be seen exactly reproduces the principle of the 
Domesday by-law. 

The form * gavelage ' appears to represent a Latin form, 

gablagium. We find it again in the same county, under the 

barbarous corruption 'gasfleage,' in the customs of New 

alton, printed among the miscellaneous pieces in Hearne's 

Liber Niger : 

It is used and granted that every burgess shall give to the lord 
one tyme in the year a fee-£urm rent for his tenement, the which is 
called the gasfleage? 

Returning to Chester, we may notice the fact that from its 
Domesday gablutn were duly derived the later forms, * the 
gabell rent,' ' the gabul rentes,' and even, by the combination 
of this pleonasm with a corruption, * the long-gable rent ' — 
that is, the landgafol? It may be known to some of you 
that under the title 'The true Story of the Leicester Inquests,'* 
I have published a paper on some curious inquests held at 
Leicester in the thirty-seventh of Henry III., the object of one 
of which was to determine the origin of the payment to the 
lord of ' gavel pennies.' So strangely had that origin been al- 
ready forgotten, that the jurors gravely returned the payment 
as having originated a century and a half before in a payment 
from every house of which the gable (gabbis) faced the High 

» Perhaps, originally, • Oyez, Oyer, Oyez.' 

* Hearne's Liber Niger ^ p. 803. 

» Eighth Report Hist, AfSS. App. I. pp. 340, 358 b, 362 b, 

* Antiquary^ vol. xi. 



DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 141 

Street ! Though everyone seems to have been imposed upon 
by this return (which affords an instance of Folk-Etymology 
as obvious as it is interesting) they have all, you must kindly 
allow me to add, been fairly outstripped by Mr. Cordy 
Jeaffreson, who in his glowing Report to the Royal Com- 
mission, describes this record as revealing to our gaze a 
glimpse of 'the eleventh century ' in 'a striking picture of the 
old borough town, with its one main street bordered hy gabled 
houses ' I 

But, keeping to the Survey, observe that at Canterbury 
the king had possessed, T.R.E., 51 burgesses 'reddentes 
gablum,' whereas, in 1086, he had only 19 'gablum reddentes.* 
This, though in such striking contrast to the state of things 
at Pevensey, was clearly the usual experience. As evidence 
of this the Gloucestershire fragment, attributed to the close 
of the eleventh century, will be found of special valtfe. In 
the time of King Edward, we there read, there were at 
Gloucester 300 * bui^enses in dominio reddentes XVlii libras 
et X solidos de gablo per annum.' But when this particular 
Survey was made the 300 gafol'^^y\x\g burgesses had dwindled 
to 97. We are prepared, it may be added, for this by the 
Great Survey itself, which also speaks, at Gloucester, of the 
* dominica terra regis ' and of the * dominium regis in civitate.* 
At Winchcombe, which is included in the same Survey, the 
sixty ga/o/'pdiying burgesses in dominio were only reduced to 
fifty-two. But here, as at Gloucester, it would seem, as we 
might expect, to have been precisely the most valuable houses 
on which the crown had lost its gablum. While on the 
subject, I would observe that this Survey gives us an indica- 
tion of the relative importance of these two towns, the burgage- 
rents at Winchcombe averaging i\d., while those at Gloucester 
the capital of the West, averaged no less than i^. 2\d, 

Lastly, if we turn to tiie Winton Domesday, another of 
these early Surveys, we find it describing itself as due to the 



142 DANEGELD AND THE FINANCE OF DOMESDAY 

determination of Henry the First 'scire quid rex Edwardus 
habuit omnibus modis Wintonie in sua dominio^ and as being 
* Liber de terris regis reddentibus landgahlum^ etc. etc. Thus 
here, as at Gloucester and Winchcombe, the gablum (or 
burgage-rent — ^we might almost term it ground-rent), arising 
from the houses on the King's dominium, is the special subject 
of inquiry, and here as there, we find that its payment had 
been widely neglected. 

I hope I have now made good my point — namely, that 
gablum was not a tax, but was a payment of the nature of 
rent, which, in towns, was received by the king as lord from 
the burgages within his dominium. It is a rash thing to 
differ from Dr. Stubbs, even in the smallest detail, but here, 
at least, I think we stand on sure ground. Gneist, I may 
add, is at one with me on the point, for he distinctly terms it 
an error to describe the king's gafol as a tax, although it has 
been so regarded, he observes, by Kemble and others. 



Postscript. — Since the above was in type, Mr. W. H. Stevenson has 
written : *■ Mr. Round is too hasty in charging Kemble and Dr. Stubbs with 
being in error in speaking of gafol as a tax * {^Historical Review , ii. 336). A 
perusal of my case will show, I hope, that his criticism is without warrant. 



By Canon ISAAC TAYLOR, M.A., LL.D., Litt. D. 

General speculations as to the interpretation of the Domes- 
day record require to be tested over limited areas by those 
who possess personal knowledge of the localities. For several 
reasons the East Riding of Yorkshire is a district which offers 
special advantages for such an inquiry. 

The Domesday record is presented in a very simple form. 
At the time of the Survey, a great part of the district lay 
waste, depopulated by the terrible devastation of the North. 
The Danish conquest had previously swept away the ancient 
system of hide geldation. The hide, that fertile source of 
ambiguity, having disappeared, the record is confined, for the 
most part, to the number of ploughlands, of possible and 
actual ploughs, and the extent of meadow and of pasture. 

Owing to the geological structure of the district, the 
ancient areas of arable, of hill pasture, and of marshland are 
clearly marked and easily recognisable. Moreover, there were 
no extensive woodlands, whose clearance has elsewhere greatly 
altered the agricultural conditions and the external aspect of 
the country. 

In few districts have the primitive features of the country 
been so little disturbed by the hand of man. The land has 
not been defaced by mining or manufacturing industries ; 
with the exception of one seaport, there are no great modern 



144 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

towns, with encroaching suburbs to transform and disfigure 
the neighbouring villages. The population is sparse and 
stationary, the houses are not, as in some counties, dotted here 
and there over the land in clearings from the forest, but, as in 
the champaign districts of France and Germany, the dwellings 
— both cottages and farmhouses — are collected in villages and 
hamlets, on the same spots where available springs of water 
caused them to be originally fixed. 

The general inclosure of the county has only been effected 
in comparatively recent times, so that within the memory of 
persons now living, it was possible to cross the Riding on 
horseback from west to east over the open ground. In many 
instances the uninclosed arable fields remained, in the reign 
of George III., as they were in the reign of William the 
Bastard, and thus in numerous townships it is possible to 
recover the boundaries and extent of the arable, the pratum, 
and the outlying common pastures, as described by the 
Domesday Commissioners. The survival of these archaic 
features greatly facilitates the solution of certain Domesday 
problems. In the East Riding the task of investigating the 
significance of the Domesday Survey is thus presented under 
the simplest conditions, free from complications arising either 
from the character of the record, from geographical difficulties, 
or from modern transformations of the features of the country. 

We have, in the East Riding, a repetition, on a large scale, 
of those favourable conditions which, in the neighbourhood 
of Hitchin, enabled Mr. Seebohm to throw such a brilliant light 
on the early village communities of England, but with the 
important difference that we are dealing with communities, 
not of Saxons, but of Danes and Angles. 

A fundamental fact which has to be borne in mind is the 
former existence of two different systems of agriculture. The 
simpler of the two, and doubtless the most ancient, was the 
two-field system, in which the whole arable of the township 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 145 

lay in two fields or shifts, one field being fallowed every year 
and fed over by the cattle of the community, while the other 
field was in tillage, half of it being ploughed in winter, and the 
other half in Lent. 

The other system was the three-field shift, in which the 
arable lay in three nearly equal fields, one for fallow, one 
for winter tillage, and the third for spring tillage. Each 
tenant of the manor had corresponding strips in all three 
fields. Thus in two-field manors half of the arable was con- 
stantly in tillage, while in three field manors two-thirds was 
always tilled. 

In the south of England, to which Mr. Seebohm's investi- 
gations were confined, the three-field shift seems to have been 
nearly universal, and he has consequently overlooked the im- 
portant differences arising from the two systems of agriculture. 
In Derbyshire the two-field system prevailed, while in the 
East Riding of Yorkshire we find both systems were practised, 
one in Holdemess and the other on the Wolds, and we have 
therefore a unique opportunity of discovering how they were 
noted in the Domesday record. 

The chief object of the present paper is to discover how the 
t^vo-field and three-field manors may be recognised in the 
Domesday entries, and to show how the distinction affects 
the interpretation of the Domesday land measures. 

All over the East Riding the six-inch Ordnance Map still 
testifies to the former existence and extent of these open 
arable fields.' Their names are found upon the map, and in 
numerous instances they enable us to determine whether the 
township was cultivated on the two-field or the three-field shift 

* At the end of the last century half or more than half of Huntingdonshire, 
Berkshire, and Wilts were in open fields, as were 50,000 acres in Warwickshire, 
100 parishes in Oxfordshire, and 89 in Northamptonshire (Nasse, Agricultural 
Communitus of the Middle Agts^ p. 6). In 1 557 Tusser describes Essex and Suffolk 
as almost wholly inclosed, while the common-field system, usually in a three- 
field shift, and exceptionally in a two-field shift, prevailed in Leicestershire, Nor- 
folk, and Cambridgeshire. lb, p. 84. 

VOL. L L 



146 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

These ' fields * usually take their name from some local 
peculiarity — from the nature of the soil, as Clay Field, Sand 
Field, or Gravel Field ; from some building, as Mill Field 
or Church Field ; from distance, as Far Field, Near Field, or 
Out Field ; or more commonly from their position in relation 
to the village, as East Field, North Field, or Town End Field. 

In eighteen of the two-field townships, Lisset, Beeford, 
Ulrome, Dringhoe, Lund, Aldbrough, East Newton, Preston, 
Coniston, Danthorpe, Elstemwick, Burton Pidsea, Laxton, 
Oin'thome, Hollym, Holmpton, Patrington, and Kilnsea, the 
two fields are called North Field and South Field. In six- 
teen townships, Foston, Riston, Sigglesthome, Everthorpc, 
Heslerton, Easington, SkeflRing, Out Newton Weeton, Wel- 
wick, Ryhill, Roos, Tunstall, Sproatley, South Coates, and 
Arnold, they are called East Field and West Field. We 
find High Field and Low Field at Bessingby and Scaggle- 
thorpe ; and Gravel Field and Clay Field at Catwick. 

Among the three-field townships we have the names East 
Field, West Field, and North Field at Fridaythorpe, Button- 
Cranswick, Riccall, and Hotham ; we have East Field, West 
Field, and South Field at Wawne ; we have North Field, 
South Field, and West Field at Bishop Wilton, Garton-on-the- 
Wolds, Skidby, and Swanland ; we have East Field, West 
Field, and Middle Field at Elmswell, Driflield, and Burton 
Agnes ; North Field, South Field, and Middle Field at 
Mappleton, and Holme-on-Spalding-Moor. At Wharram-le- 
Street we find North Field, South Fields and Town End 
Field ; we have West Field, North Field, and Low Field at 
Willerby and Hessle. At Millington the names are In Field, 
Near Out Field, and Far Out Field ; at Tibthorpe, In Field, 
High Field, and Low Field ; at Kirkbum, In Field, Out Field, 
and High Field ; at Wilberfoss, Mill Field, Town End Field, 
and Far Field ; at Shipton, Clay Field, Sand Field, and South 
Field ; at Brandsburton, Sand Field, West Field, and East 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 147 

Field ; and at Hemingbrough, Mill Field, Chapel Field, and 
North Field. 

These names (and scores of others could be adduced) prove 
that the ancient common-field system, either in the two-field or 
the three-field shift, survived in the East Riding down to com- 
paratively recent times. In Burton Agnes, Haisthorpe, and 
Rowlston it was in force only forty years ago. At Tottemhoe 
near Dunstable it existed last year, being put an end to by the 
owner of the soil mainly on account of the disputes to which 
it gave rise among the tenants. The existence of the common- 
field system of agriculture is recorded in the Preambles to many 
of the Inclosure Acts passed during the reign of George III. 
At Brandsburton the agreement between the landowners, made 
in 1632, recites that in the common arable fields of Brands- 
burton ' every man's land lay intermixed in several places and 
quantitys together,' and that ' one of the said fields used to be 
sowed one year, and the other field another year.' * In 1766, 
at Elstemwick, the oxgangs contained 12 acres in each arable 
field, and 4 acres of meadow ground in the Ings. At 
Keyingham each oxgang consisted of 10 acres in each arable 
field, 4 acres in the Ings, 4 acres in each Carr, and 3 roods 
being balks and marstalls in the fields. At Etton an ancient 
document recites that ' each oxgang contains 12 acres always 
upon plough. The whole oxgang lies in three different fields, 
one of which is always fallowed, the others always in crop.' 

Mr. Seebohm has shown that the open arable field system 
has come down to us from the remotest times of English 
settlement. It must therefore have existed at the time of 
the Domesday Survey, and it would be strange if we could 
find no traces of it in that record. 

I shall now endeavour to show that the open arable field 
system of tillage is the master key for the interpretation of 
Domesday, that Domesday assumes its existence throughout, 

' Poulson's Holdemess^ vol. i. p. 270. 

L 2 



148 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

and that some of the chief difficulties that have beset Domes- 
day commentators have arisen from ignorance of this funda- 
mental fact of ancient land tenure, and of the course of agri- 
culture which resulted from it. When this is once recognised, 
as it has been by Mr. Seebohm and Mr. Pell, some of the 
greatest obscurities of the Domesday record disappear as if 
by magic. 

Domesday does not expressly refer to the open field 
system. If it were universal, or nearly so, it would naturally 
be tacitly assumed in the record. We ought to be able to 
detect it, and to distinguish, by some simple test, between 
two-field and three-field manors, as the number of fields 
formed an obvious distinction. Now the Ordnance Map, as 
we have seen, shows that, with certain exceptions hereafter to 
be explained, a large number of the East Riding townships, 
before the Inclosure Acts, lay in open arable fields, either two 
or three in number. The same arrangement of the arable 
must have existed at the time of the Norman Conquest 
Hence the first question to be solved is this : does the East 
Riding Domesday present any corresponding indications as 
to whether in these townships the land lay in a two-field or a 
three-field shift ? 

In the Yorkshire Domesday the carucate or ploughland 
takes the place of the hide of the Southern counties. 

The entries in an overwhelming number of cases follow 
one almost invariable type. We are told that in such a place 
* there are so many ploughlands to be taxed,' and ' there is 
land to so many ploughs ' ; or, • there may be so many ploughs.* 
For instance : 

In Brunebi adgeldum quatuor carucatcB. Terra ad quatuor 
carucas. 

In Lont ad geldum duodecint carucatce, et sex carttca 
possunt esse. 

Our first business is to determine the significance of such 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 149 

entries. Sir Henry Ellis is plainly wrong in his interpretation. 
He says (' General Introduction to Domesday/ p. xlix) : * we 
have frequent intimations that the land could maintain more 
ploughs — ^that is, was capable of improvement* In Yorkshire, he 
continues, 'entries of this description are extremely numerous.' 
These entries, he adds, ' are perhaps to be ascribed to the slow 
recovery of Yorkshire from devastation.' 

The statement that in a certain manor, Lund for instance, 
' there are twelve ploughlands to be taxed,' and ' there may be 
six ploughs,' or that ' there is land to six ploughs,' does not 
mean, as Sir H. Ellis supposes, that there were twelve plough- 
lands under plough, and that six more might be brought into 
cultivation, but it means that six ploughs were sufficient to 
till the twelve ploughlands. 

This is proved by the occasional alternative use of other 
phrases. For instance : 

Sex carucatcBy quas possunt arare tres caruca. 

Inter omnes suntadgeldum Ix carucatce in quibus possunt 
esse XXXV carucce. 

Inter omnes xiiii carucatce^ et viii carucce possunt arare. 

Sunt V carucattE terra ad geldum^ et totident ad arandum. 

These equivalent expressions prove that the number of 
carucaUe is the fiscal area, while the number oi carucce %\y^^ the 
tillage area. 

If any further disproof of Sir H. Ellis's theorj' be required, 
it is found in the significant fact that in a large number of 
cases the number of geldable carucates bears A FIXED PRO- 
PORTION to the number of ploughs. 

In Holdemess, as a rule, the number of ploughs is equal 
to the number of carucates, while on the Wolds, as a rule, the 
number of ploughs is half the number of carucates. 

I will first take a few instances of manors in which the 
number of carucates is equal to the number of ploughs. They 
are not picked cases, but follow one another consecutively on 



ISO THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

p. liiL of the Facsimile of the Yorkshire Domesday. They are 
all manors which were held by Drogo, in Holdemess. 

Number of NnmlMr of 

Carucates Ploughs 

Keyingham 8 8 

Ottringham 4 4 

Newiomc s^ 5 

Rimswell 5^ S 

Waxham 2 2 

Roammere i| l4 

Holmpton 8 8 

Newton 5 6 

Rise 2> 2 

Thorpe 3 3 

LiMett 3 3 

Beeford 12 12 

Soke of Beeford 12^ 12^ 

Frodin^^uun la 12 

Barmston 8 8 

Totals gii 9if 

I will next take, from p. vii., some consecutive entries 
relating to the Wolds. Here the number of carucates is 
double the number of ploughs. 

Number of Number of 

Camcetes Ploughs 

Rilltngton a i 

Mennythorpe 2 i 

Eddlethorpe 4 2 

Burythorpe 2 I 

Kirby Underdale 4^ 2 

Uncleby 2 i . 

Painsthorpe 4 2 

North Grimston 4 2 

Wharram Percy 8 4 

Fridaythorpe i | 

Totals 33J 16} 

Thus the number of carucates is either equal to the number 
of ploughs, or else double. 

In the East Riding, in manors where the number of 
ploughs and carucates is stated, there are eighty-one cases, 
chiefly in Holdemess, where the number of ploughs is exactly 
equal to the number of carucates, and there are 128 cases, 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 



151 



chiefly in the Wolds, where the number of carucates is exactly 
double the number of ploughs. 

In addition to these 209 manors in which the rule is 
exactly observed, there are also 145 townships in which, as 
in several of the foregoing cases, the difference is so trifling 
that the rule practically holds good. These are mostly 
where several berewicks are lumped together ; so that we 
are unable to ascertain the exact proportion of ploughlands 
to ploughs in each. 

I will first give some instances where the carucates are 
nearly equal in number to the ploughs, and then some where 
they are nearly double. 

Cases of Approximate Equality, 





Number of 
Carucates 


Number of 
Ploughs 


Diveivence 
from the rule 


In the Soke of Mappleton, 1 1 berewicks . 
„ Aldbrough, 14 berewicks . 

„ Burstwick, 8 berewicks . 
,, Patrington, 4 berewicks . 

Totals 


4lf 
41 

20 
3Sl 


43 
40 
12 
20 

35 


+* 
-I 


iSoi 


149 


-li 



Cases where they are nearly double. 





Number of 
Carucates 


Number of 
Ploughs 


Divergence 


In the Soke of Bridlington, 14 berewicks . 
„ Langton and 5 berewicks . 
„ Welton and 4 berewicks . 
„ Wartcr and 3 berewicks . 
„ Driffield and 4 berewicks . 
», Kelk and 2 berewicks 

Totals 


58* 
39 
39 
29 

23 
13 


30 
20 
20 

15 
12 

7 


+ ; 

+ • 
+ 
+ • 
+ ■ 
+ 




201* 


104 


+ 3t 



In these lists, which are by no means exhaustive, but 
might easily be enlarged, there are eighty townships in which 
the want of exact conformity to the rule is so small as to be 
almost inappreciable, and even this trifling irregularity would 
probably in most cases disappear if the number of ploughs 



152 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

and ploughlands were given separately, instead of collectively. 
Altogether, there are upwards of 350 manors and sokes in the 
Kast Riding in which the number of canicates is either equal 
or very nearly equal, to the number of ploughs, or else double 
or vtxy nearly double. The inquiry might be extended to 
Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, and the other Ridings of Yorkshire, 
with results nearly as striking. 

It is quite incredible that these fixed proportions of 
ploughs to carucates can be accidental. There must be a 
cause to explain the result. 

Mr. Eyton's theory that some persons had their lands 
favourably carucated— that is, that they were taxed upon a 
number of carucates less than those actually in cultivation — 
affords no sufficient explanation. As far as the East Riding 
goes, the number of geldable carucates, when it is not equal 
to the number of ploughs, is not less than the number of 
ploughs, as the theory would require, but double or nearly 
double. Nor will the theory hold that the geldable carucates 
referred to the possible arable, and the ploughs to the arable 
actually under cultivation; or the converse theory of Sir 
H. Ellis, that the number of carucates refers to the number 
under plough, while the number of ploughs represents the 
land that might be brought into cultivation. That in 150 
manors in the East Riding precisely two-thirds of the possible 
arable was tilled, and precisely one-third had gone out of 
cultivation owing to William's devastation of the North, is 
quite incredible. Did William order every third plough to 
be destroyed, and every third villan to be slain ? 

Even this extravagant supposition is excluded by the fact 
that these returns as to the relative numbers of ploughs and 
carucates usually refer to the state pf things in the time of 
King Edward, and not at the time of the Survey. Moreover, 
the number of ploughs actually on the land is frequently 
stated, and usually differs very materially from the number 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 153 

of possible ploughs. For instance at Ferriby we learn that 
* there were ten carucates ctd geldum^ and land to five ploughs. 
There are now three ploughs.' 

Besides, over extensive areas, the proportions are curiously 
uniform. On the Wolds, in a large number of cases, the 
number of carucates is double, or nearly double, the number of 
ploughs, while in Holderness, with a few exceptions, the rule 
of equality prevails. 

Plainly, we must seek for an explanation of an entirely 
different nature, we must try and discover some general law 
which will apply universally. 

Is it difference of soil ? It is true that Holderness is a 
level plain overspread with glacial drift, the subsoil being 
heavy clay, while the Wolds are rolling hills of chalk, with a 
thin covering of light soil. But we can hardly assume that 
the clay of Holderness was exactly twice as difficult to till as 
the chalk of the Wolds. Even if this were the case there are 
curious exceptions which dispose of this hypothesis. There 
are Wold manors where the Holderness rule prevails, and 
Holderness manors where the Wold rule prevails. For an 
example we may take the manors belonging to Odo Ar- 
balistarius, which are given on p. Ixiv. of the Facsimile, 
None of them are in Holderness, and they are mostly on the 
Wolds, and yet the number of carucates is exactly equal to 
the number of ploughs, as in Holderness. We have 

Number of Namber of 

Carncates Ploughs 

^ugthorpe 4 4 

Bttiythorpe 2 2 

Youlthorpe 4 4 

Fridaythorpe 18 18 

Raisthorpe 2 2 

Swaylhorpe 9 9 

Skirpenbeck 5) 5J 

Grimston 4| 4| 

Kilham 7 7 

Totals . 56! 56^ 



154 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

Now in some of these townships (viz. Fridaythorpe, North 
Grimston, and Burythorpe) I have already cited manors which 
belonged, not to Odo Arbalistarius, but to the king, in which 
the other rule prevails, the number of carucates being double 
the number of ploughs. Vice versa^ we may take manors of 
the Archbishop situate in Holdemess, and we find that they 
conform, not to the local rule of the equality of ploughs and 
carucates, which prevails in Drc^o's manors, but the rule which 
prevails in the manors of the Archbishop situate elsewhere. 
Thus, in Eske, a Holdemess manor of the Archbishop, there 
were two carucates, and land to one plough ; in Tickton, 
twelve oxgangs, and land to six oxen ; and in Wawne 2^ 
carucates, and land to one plough. It is evident that the ratio 
depends, not on local situation, or on the nature of the soil, 
but on some rule or custom of the manor, or on the method 
of tillage. 

The true explanation cannot fail to suggest itself when once 
the problem is thus stated. We have already seen, from an 
examination of the Ordnance Map, that the townships of the 
East Riding may be divided into two classes — those in which 
the arable lay in two fields, and those in which it lay in 
three. 

With the aid of Domesday we may also divide the East 
Riding manors into two classes — those in which the number 
of carucates equals the number of ploughs, and those in which 
it is double. 

The only question which remains to be answered is this : 
Do these two classifications agree or do they not ? If they 
agree the mathematical chances are overwhelming that we 
have found the explanation we are seeking — that we have, in 
fact, discovered a test by which the two-field manors in 
Domesday can be distinguished from the three-field manors. 

I have gone through the six-inch Ordnance Map of the 
East Riding, and made complete lists of those townships in 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 155 

which the names of the open arable fields are preserved so 
perfectly as to show which of them were divided into two 
fields, and which into three fields. I have also gone through 
the Domesday returns, making a list of those townships in 
which the number of carucates was equal to the number of 
ploughs, and another of those in which the carucates are 
double the ploughs. The lists themselves are too long for 
insertion, but the summary of the results of the inquiiy seems 
to me to be conclusive. 

There are 50 townships as to which the map shows plainly 
that the land lay in two fields, and in 44 of these we find 
from Domesday that the number of carucates was equal to the 
number of ploughs. In the remainder the record is defective, 
usually owing to the number of ploughs not being stated. 

Again, there are 52 townships in which the map shows 
three fields, and in 48 of these we learn from Domesday that 
the number of carucates was approximately double the number 
of ploughs. 

Thus there are 102 townships in which the Ordnance Map 
enables us to discover the number of the ancient common 
fields, and in 92 of these the correspondence holds good ; and I 
have been able to add a few more from older maps and surveys. 
For instance, at Langton, a survey which must be earlier than 
16 1 7 shows that there were then three fields. East Field, Middle 
Field and West Field, the names of which have now been for- 
gotten. As far as the evidence is in existence it may be af- 
firmed that there are at least 100 townships in the East Riding 
in which the rule prevails. 

Briefly to sum up the argument of the preceding pages, 
the map determines, in about one hundred townships, the 
former existence of the two-field or the three-field culture ; 
Domesday frequently states that the number of ploughlands 
was either equal to the number of ploughs or else double. 
These two classifications of East Riding townships practically 



156 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 



agree. - Where there are two fields the number of Domesday 
ploughlands is equal to the number of ploughs ; where there 
are three, the ploughlands are double the ploughs. The 
agreement cannot be accidental The inference is irresistible, 
the one fact must be the explanation of the other. 

Exceptio probat regulam. There is a remarkable case 
where the rule apparently fails.* On p. iv. of the Facsimile we 
read that in the manor of Burton Agnes, sunt ad geldum xxv 
carucatce terra^ quas possunt arare xv cartica. The proportion 
of ploughlands to ploughs is neither equal nor double, but as 5 
to 3. This is anomalous. The rule fails. But, when we examine 
more narrowly, the rule is curiously confirmed. The Domes- 
day manor consisted of Burton, with its three berewicks of 
Grensmore, Harpham, and Boythorpe. The text does not 
allot the number of carucates to each township, but if we turn 
to p. Ixxxvii, we find, in the index to the East Riding Domes- 
day, that the 25 carucates were apportioned thus : Burton, 12 ; 
Grensmore, 4 ; Harpham, 4 ; Boythorpe, 5. 





Number of 
Fields 


Number of 
Carucates 


Number of 
Ploughs 


Burton 
Grensmore . 
Harpham . 
Boythorpe . 

Totals 


3 
3 
3 

3 


12 

4 
4 
5 


6 

2 

2 

5 


— 


25 


15 



The map shows that Burton, Grensmore, and Harpham 
which are contiguous townships, had, each of them, three 
fields, whereas at Boythorpe, which lies detached in another 
hundred, among two-field manors, there were only two fields, 
now called Boythorpe Field North side and Boythorpe Field 

* Some other exceptions which I have discovered seem also to confirm the rule. 
In some townships there were two manors, one worked on a two-field, and the 
other on a three-field shift. Occasionally the map shows one large field, and two 
small ones which seem to have been worked together as a single field. Some 
cases in which the rule fails are discussed further on. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 157 

South side. If, as in the foregoing table, we apportion the 
ploughs to the carucates according to the rule, we get a result 
which agrees with the Domesday statement.^ 

We now see the reason of the prevailing ratios of carucates 
to ploughs. It depended on the system of tills^e. When the 
land lay in two fields — that is, when half the land was always 
in fallow — the number of ploughs was normally equal to the 
number of carucates. When the land lay in three fields, that 
is, when only one-third was always in fallow, the number of 
ploughs was normally one^half the number of carucates. 
But this result is exactly the opposite of what we should 
expect If two-thirds of the whole arable was annually tilled, 
it would surely require a larger proportionate number of 
ploughs than if only one-half were annually tilled, whereas 
we find the number is much smaller, only one-half as many 
ploughs being required. 

The explanation of this seeming anomaly lies in an im- 
portant and novel proposition, which I hope to establish. The 
proposition is this : The geldable carucate of Domesday does 
not signify what the carucate usually signifies in other early 
documents. The carucata ad geldum is not, as commonly 
stated by Domesday commentators, the quantity of land 
ploughed in each year by one plough, but it is the quantity 
tilled in one year IN ONE ARABLE FIELD by one plough. 

With a two-field shift, since only one field was in tillage in 
any one year, the land tilled in the year by one plough would 

> We may thus explain a not unfrequent anomaly, where the ratio of carucates 
and ploughs is as 3 to 2. Two carucates in three fields would require one plough, 
and one carucate in two fields would also require one plough, giving a total of 
three carucates and two ploughs. In such cases there may originally have heen 
two manors in the same township, or the land may have been of unequal quality, 
the heavy land being worked on a two-field shift and the light land on a three- 
field shift. Other exceptional cases may be due to a change from a two-field to a 
three-field shift in post- Domesday times. There are three or four cases in the 
East Riding where the number of ploughs exceeds the number of carucates. This 
is more common in other counties, and in some instances, as will presently be 
shown, arose from the adoption of a system of tillage unsuited to the soil. 



158 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

be the same as the quantity tilled by one plough in one field. 
Here the arable carucate and the geldable carucate are the 
same. Hence in two-field manors the number of ploughs is 
equal to the number of geldable carucates* But with a three- 
field shift, the autumn tillage in one field and the Lent tillage 
in another by the same plough would each count as a geldable 
carucate, and hence the number of carucates ad geldum would 
be double the number of carucates ad arandum — that is, it 
would be double the number of ploughs. 

We have now arrived at a theoretical solution of the great- 
est difficulty which has perplexed Domesday commentators ; 
but as yet we have obtained only ratios. It still remains to 
be seen whether any trustworthy results as to the absolute 
acreage of the carucata ad geldum^ and of the terra ad unam 
carucam are attainable. It is, however, plain that the area of 
the carucate would differ in three-field and in two-field manors : 
in one case it was half, and in the other the whole of the 
tillage of the plough. 

I will first examine some of the documentary evidence as 
to the size of the carucate, and then proceed to adduce actual 
measures in East Riding townships. 

The earliest, and also the most definite authority, in fact 
the only evidence of supreme importance, is the statement in 
an anonymous work which goes by the name of Fleta, written 
in the reign of Edward L, about two hundred years after 
Domesday was compiled. 

Fleta tells us that if the land lay in three common fields, 
the carucate contained i8o acres, sixty for winter tillage, 
sixty for Lent tillage, and sixty for fallow ; but if it lay in 
two fields, then the carucate contained i6o acres, eighty for 
fallow, and eighty for winter and Lent tillage.* 

* It may be as well to quote the exact words : —' Item certificetur in primo ad- 
ventu suo de custagiis carucarum in quocunque manerio quae sciri poterunt per hanc 
rationem, ut terrse sint tripartita, tunc nonies xx acrae faciunt canicatam, eo quod 



\ 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 159 

By means of this authoritative statement it becomes pos- 
sible to reconcile a great number of incidental notices as to 
the area of the carucate, and its eighth part, the bovate, notices 
which have seemed to be so hopelessly at variance, that com- 
mentators, in despair, have come to the conclusion that the 
chief Domesday land measures denoted no fixed areas, but 
varied in different places.' 

Taking Fleta's account as our guide, we now see that, in a 
three-field manor, the Domesday carucata ad geldutn should 
be sixty acres; the arable or tillage carucate, the terra ad unam 
carucam^ 120 acres ; and the whole carucate, including the idle 
shift, €ui warectandum, 180 acres. By the Anglicus nutnems, 
or great hundred of six score, these figures would be respec- 
tively 72, 144, and 216 acres. In a two-field manor, both 
the geldable and the arable carucate should be eighty acres, 
and the whole carucate, including the idle shift, 160 acres ; 
figures which by the great hundred would be 96 and 192 
acres. Since eight Domesday bovates make one carucate,* 
we should also expect to meet with bovates of one-eighth of 
these areas, viz. of 7^, 15, 22^, 9, 18, 27, 10, 20, 12, and 24 
acres, according as they were reckoned in one or more fields, 
in two-field or three-field manors, and by the Norman or the 
English score.' 

There are numerous incidental notices of the areas of 

Iz in hyeme, Ix in quadragesima, et Ix in arstate pro warecto debent exarari. De 
tenis vero bipartitis, debent ad carucani octies xx acrae computari, ut medietas pro 
warecto habeatur, et medietas alia in hyeme et quadragesima seminetur.* Fleta, 
lib. 2. cap. 72, De Officio communis Senescalli, §§ 4 and 5. 

' Sec Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, pp. xlvii., xlviii. Sir H. Ellis comes to 
the conclusion that * the truth seems to be ' that the Domesday land measures 
'contained no certain number of acres, but varied according to different places.* 
Mr. Eyton's carucates vary from 244 to i,cxx> acres. Mr. Kemble argues that the 
hide was not more than 40 acres. Canon Greenwell thinks the land measures 
* varied with the nature of the soil,' and Canon Raine considers they were * some- 
what uncertain.' 

» See Appendix, Note A. 

' I have discussed the size of the Bovate in an article in Notes and Queries^ 
7th Series, vol. ii. p. 481. 




x6o THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

carucates and bovates which do actually conform to these 
figures, which are those we should theoretically expect 
These notices go back to a period 260 years before Domesday 
was compiled, and come down to comparatively recent times. 
In an Anglo-Saxon charter' belonging to about 958 A.D., 
iElfgdr bequeaths a hide of 120 acres. This would be the 
tilled area of a hide of i8c acres in a three-field manor. 
In another and earlier charter,* we have in the year 825 
a donation to St Guthlac of manerium meum de Boston, cum 
quatuor carucatis terra arabilis^ continentes in longitudine 
octo quarmtmas, et octo quarentenas in latitud^ne. This 
would give 64 square quarentenes, which, at ten acres each, 
would amount to 640 acres, or 160 acres for each carucatc; 
This would be the whole arable in both fields of a two-field 
manor. The length and breadth would of course include 
the fallow as well as the tilled field.' 

The importance of this evidence is obvious. It proves 
that the normal size of the carucate in two-field and three- 
field manors, a century or two before the Conquest, was the 
same as it was in Fleta's time, two hundred years after Domes- 
day was compiled. 

It is remarkable that there is only one direct statement in 
Domesday Book itself, from which the area of the carucate 
can be inferred. This passage, which has been repeatedly 
quoted, occurs on the second folio of the Kent Domesday. 
In communi terra Sti. Martini sunt CCCC^ acrce et dimid. qfue 
fiunt II solinos et dimid. The Kentish ploughland or ' sulung ' 

> Codex Diplomaticus, No. 1222 (vol. vi. p. 11). 

» Cod, DipL Nos. 221, 233, vol. i. pp. 286, 306. Kemble marks these charters 
as doubtful, but this does not affect their value for our purpose. 

■ The charters, Nos. 213, 233, also mention a plot of ground at Langtoft 15 
quarentenes long, and 9 broad, containing 6 carucates. This would give 22 1 square 
quarentenes, i,e. 225 acres, to the carucate, whereas the carucate of 180 acres by the 
great hundred would amount only to 216 acres. If the land was irregular in shape, 
and the greatest length and breadth were taken, as is usually the case in Domesday, 
the difference would be explained, or possibly roadways may be included. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH i6i 

is the English equivalent of the carucata of the Danish shires.^ 
Its area was the same, for if 2\ sulungs contain 450 acres, 
one sulung would contain 180 acres ; or a carucate reckoned 
in all three fields of a three-field manor. 

The post Domesday evidence which bears most nearly on 
the Yorkshire Domesday is the Boldon Book of Durham, 
which contains a survey, made in 1183, of the manors belong- 
ing to the See of Durham. It is therefore later by less than 
a century than Domesday Book, and unlike the other early 
surveys, the Liber Niger of Peterborough, and the Domesday 
of St Paul, it deals with northern lands where the carucate 
takes the place of the southern hide. 

In the Boldon Book, the size of a carucate is only once 
expressly stated, but the size of others can be inferred from 
the number of scatpennies paid, while in numerous instances 
the acreage of bovates is stated or implied, and since eight 
bovates normally constituted a carucate, the acreage of the 
corresponding carucates can be readily computed. In the 
Boldon Book, the acreage of 1,659 holdings is g^iven directly 
or indirectly, and all of them, without exception, accord with 
Fleta's statement as to the area of the carucate. The three- 
field shift seems to have generally prevailed, as there are 
1,238 holdings in which it is implied, 1,222 by the small 
hundred, giving carucates of 60 acres, and 16 by the great 
hundred, giving carucates of 72 acres. When the land lay in 
the more primitive two-field shift, the older numeration was 
usually adopted, as there are only 23 holdings implying caru- 
cates of 80 acres, and 230 implying carucates of 96 acres, or 
80 by the great hundred. There are 168 holdings where the 

* Solini velsolina suntet carrucaia, Ducange, s. v. ScHnum, We read also 
in the Register of Battle Abbey, of sepiem swuHngarum^ id est hidarum, and in a 
Canterbury Charter Terra irium arairarum guam CanHamdieunt three SwolHnjpu, 
£llis, Introduction^ p. xlix. 

VOL. I. M 



i62 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

land seems to have been converted from a two-field to a three- 
field shift» 

The Liber Niger of Hexham, though dating only from 
1479, affords valuable information to the same effect. The 
greater portion of the lands of this monastery lay in North- 
umberland, where, at the time of the survey, the division into 
carucates and oxgangs had fallen into disuse ; but it possessed 
five Yorkshire manors, in which the old land division still 
prevailed. The Liber Niger records the acreage of 216 
Yorkshire holdings, of which 191 imply carucates of 60 acres, 
170 being by the large hundred and 21 by the small ; there 
are 24 holdings which imply carucates of 64 acres, which 
resulted from a two-field manor by the large hundred being 
converted into a three-field shift,* while there is one case which 
implies a holding in a two-field manor by the large hundred. 

I have collected a considerable number of incidental state- 
ments as to the area of the carucate and bovate from York- 
shire monastic charters and deeds, dating from the Conquest 
to the Reformation, which confirm Fleta's statement as to 
the size of the carucate in two-field and three-field manors. 
The evidence is given in the Appendix,* and it may here 
suffice merely to state the results. According to Fleta, the 
carucate in one field of a three-field manor was 60 acres, which 
would be 72 by the great hundred, while in a two-field manor 
it was 80 acres, or 96 by the great hundred. The actual 
acreages are as follows : — 

( I. ) Carucates in thru-field manors by the small hundred^ncrmaUy 60 acres. 

A. R. p. 

Rokeby 63 o 8 

Salton (demesne) 60 o o 

> A summary of the evidence for this account of the acreage of the Durham hold- 
ing9 is given in the Appendix, Note B. 

' A two-field carucate by the great hundred would contain 192 acres, which if 
repartitioned into three fields would give 64 acres in each field, with bovates of 8 
acres. In some districts this converted carucate of 64 acres is the most usual. 

* See Appendix, Note C. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 163 

A. K. P. 

Flaxton 60 o o 

Little Baragh 64 o o 

Winksley 64 o o 

Nonnanby 60 o o 

Stainburn 64 o o 

Ingelby (Gisburn) 62 o o 

Ingelby (Hexham) 60 o o 

(2. ) Carucaies in three-field fnancrs by the great hundred —normal^ 72 acres. 

A. R. p. 

Scorton 72 o o 

Dishforth 71 2 o 

Winksley 70 o o 

North Cowton 71 I 13 

Great Banigh 72 o o 

Edston 72 o o 

Brawby 72 o o 

Salton (villans) 72 o o 

Stainton-le-Street 72 o o 

(3. ) Canuates in twofield manors by the small hundred —normally 80 acres, 

A. s. p. 

Baldersby 80 o o 

Eliewick 80 o 26 

Aberdeen 80 o o 

Herfortun 80 o o 

(4.) Carucaies in two field manors by the great hundred — normally 96 acres, 

A. K. p. 

Kirkby 96 o o 

Chesterhope 96 o o 

Sethon 96 o o 

Gisebum 96 o o 

Rainton . 96 o o 

To this evidence it may be objected that the round 
numbers indicate that the areas were not accurately measured, 
but only roughly computed, and also we cannot in every 
case be certain that the acres mentioned in the documents 
were really statute acres, as there seems to be reason for 
supposing that in certain localities the acres were either 
larger or smaller than the normal acre J 

It will therefore be satisfactory if, instead of relying ex- 
clusively on ancient documentary evidence, we can discover 

' See Appendix^ Note D. 

M 2 



i64 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

townships in which the area of the Domesday arable continued 
under plough till recent times, so as to test the Domesday 
land measures by the measurements of modem surveyors, 
who, beyond doubt, measured by statute acres. We may thus 
satisfy ourselves, not only of the correctness of Fleta's account 
of the acreage of the carucate, but may also ascertain whether 
the geldable carucate of Domesday in a three-field manor was 
60 or 120 acres — ^that is, whether it was reckoned in one field 
only or in both of the two tilled fields, a matter as to which 
we derive no information from Fleta's statement, and which 
has hitherto escaped discussion. 

From modem surveys and estate maps compared with the 
statements in Domesday Book, I have obtained the following 
results for the area of the carucata adgeldum and of the terra 
ad unam carucam in three-field townships. 



Barton Agnes . 
Haisthorpe 
Thornholm 
Liangton . 
Kirby Underdale 
Wold Newton . 



Geldable 


Land to one 


Canicate 


Plough 


A. R. p. 


A. R. p. 


60 a 


121 


60 3 6 


121 2 13 


63 2 34 


127 I 28 


63 2 17 


127 034 


64 


128 


67 I 18 


117 2 27 



I desire to draw particular attention to these cases, of 
which the details are given in the Appendix,^ as the know- 
ledge of the area of the arable in each of the three fields 
makes it possible to establish as a matter of fact the theorem 
at which we have only arrived by a process of inference, that 
in three-field manors the Domesday geldable carucates were 
double the number of ploughs, its carucata ad geldum being 
reckoned only in one field, while the terra ad unam carucam 
was reckoned in two fields ; and further we arrive at the more 
exact conclusion that the former was normally 60 acres, and 
the latter 120 acres. 

> See Appendix, Note £. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 165 

We have» in next place, to investigate the area of the 
carucate in two-fidd townships. Here the problem is more 
simple, and the available evidence more abundant. 

According to Fleta's account the carucate in a two-field 
manor was 160 acres, of which 80 acres were in tillage and 80 
in fallow. The Domesday geldable carucate would be the 
same as the arable carucate, 80 acres, or 96 by the great 
hundred. 

From maps and surveys of two-field townships I have 
obtained the results given in the Appendix,^ which may be 
tabulated as follows : — 

Ajika of thb Domesday Gbldablb Carucatb in Two-fibld Manors. 
(i.) By tk$ small hundnd^-normally 80 cures, 

A. R. p. 

Catiba (map of 1730) 80 i 13 

Rowton (map of 1740) 81 3 2a 

Bewholme (Inclosure Act) . . . • 79 o 7 

Rowlston (Tithe Map) 1858 . . . • 79 3 24 

Rise (map of 1702) Z'^^** • ' • ^4 2 24 

I- ' I land to one plough . 79 i 18 

Keyingham (Franchise Fee) . . . . 80 o o 

•• Welwick (1705) 80 o o 

Patrington (1665) 80 o o 

(2. ) Bythi great hundred— normally 96 atres, 

A. a. p. 

Withemwick (Inclosure, reputed acreage) • 93 3 o 

Elstemwick (1766) ' on average ' . . . 96 o o 

Brandsburton (1632) 95 3 ^ 

The foregoing instances may perhaps suffice to prove that, 
at all events in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Fleta's state- 
ment as to the normal size of the carucate in two-field and 
three-field manors is substantially correct It is most improb- 
able that so early and well-informed a writer should have 
been wholly at sea as to a matter of which he must have had 
personal cognisance, and the disregard of his evidence by 
modem writers must be explained by the fact of their having 

* See Appendix, Note F. 



i66 THE PLOUGHLAnD AND THE PLOUGH 

failed to grasp the significance of the common-field system of 
agriculture, which is the key to any true understanding of the 
Domesday record.' 

We may take it then as established, that in Yorkshire the 
geldable carucate of Domesday was normally 80 acres with a 
two-field shift, and 60 with a three-field shift, either by the 
small or the great hundred. 

I have discovered some exceptional cases, but I think they 
can be explained without any very great difficulty. 

They class themselves in two divisions : 

1. Where there has been a change from a two-field to a 
three-field shifl. 

2. Where the customary course of husbandry was unsuited 
to the nature of the soil, and was modified accordingly ; for 
instance, where we have a two-field township on light soil, or 
a three-field township on heavy soil. 

As instances of the first anomaly I will take Sutton and 
Stainton ; as instances of the second, Leven and Burstwick. 

Sutton in Holdemess is one of the two or three exceptions 
to the rule already laid down, that where the modem map 
shows three arable fields the number of Domesday carucates 
is double the number of ploughs. Sutton was inclosed in 
1764 by Act of Parliament. There were then about 780 acres 
of arable in three common fields. This corresponds to the 
3i carucates held by Drogo. The number of ploughs is not 
expressly stated, but we may safely assume that, as in the 
rest of Drogo's manors, the number of ploughs was equal to 
the number of geldable carucates. There should, therefore, 
according to our theory, have been only two arable fields, in- 
stead of the three which we find in 1764. Now 780 acres in 
three fields gives an average of 260 acres in any one field, and 

' Thus the Athenaum^ in its account of the Domesday Commemoration, com- 
plains that a certain paper * was tinged too deeply with the common-field theoiy. 
It would be as reasonable to complain that a paper on the motions of the moon 
* was tinged too deeply with the theory of gravitation.* 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 167 

5 20 in any two. If we treat it as a three-field manor, we obtain 
160 acres (520-7-3^=160) for the geldable carucate, instead 
of 60 acres as it ought to be, while if we treat it as a two-field 
manor, the geldable carucate is 120 acres (390-t-3j = i20), 
instead of 80, and the arable carucate comes out either as 160 
or 80 acres. 

An inspection of the map explains these anomalies. There 
seem to have been two original fields, East Field and West 
Field, to which the Domesday statement refers, while at some 
subsequent time a third field, of equal extent, was taken out 
of the North Carr. This is indicated by its name. North Carr 
Field. Assuming that the carucates retained the customary 
acreage of the two-field carucate, 80 acres in each field, 
instead of being reduced to 60 acres as in original three-field 
townships, ever3rthing becomes clear. Excluding the North 
Carr Field, the Domesday carucates are found lo be of 
the normal size, while if we include it the abnormal size of 
the carucates in a three-field shift is accounted for at once. 

I have discovered another instance in which the same 
thing seems to have been done in the same way, though the 
evidence as to the fact is of an entirely different nature. In 
the Cartulary of the Priory of Finchale there is only one 
mention of the acreage of a bovate or carucate. In 1284, 
Ranald de Wynterse gave to the Priory two bovates of 
arable, containing 60 acres, at Little Stainton in the parish 
of Bishopton, county Durham.* A bovate of 30 acres implies 
a carucate of 240 acres, which would arise from a third field 
being added in a normal two-field manor. The original 
carucate would contain 160 acres in two fields, which would 
become 240 acres by the inclosure from tiiepastura of a third 
field of the same size as the other two. 

In some cases a two-field shift seems to have been con- 
verted into the more profitable three-field shift by taking in a 

• Charters of the Priory of FinchaU^ p. 59. 



i68 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

third field out of the pastura^ and retaining the customary 
size of the oxgangs (either lo or 12 acres), but reckoning 
12 oxgangs to the carucate. This seems to have been the 
case at Etton.^ Or a two-field carucate of 192 acres by the 
great hundred, if redivided into three fields, would give 64 
acres to the carucate in each field, which is not at all uncom- 
mon. Or if a three-field township lapsed into a two-field shift, 
the carucate would be 108 acres, and the bovates 13^ acres, 
as at Warden. 

The rule that the number of geldable carucates is either 
equal to the number of ploughs or else double is not universal 
even in the East Riding, and in other districts the exceptions 
are more numerous. Probably no single explanation will 
suffice ; in some cases the anomaly may have arisen from the 
exceptional value of the land, in others from recent extension 
of cultiv^ion, or from geldation by some older assessment, or 
from favourable geldation, as was probably the case with cer- 
tain monastic lands. Such explanations must be matters of 
conjecture, but there is another theory — differences in the 
nature .of the soil, which would afifect the possibilities ot 
tillage — the validity of which can actually be tested. 

I will take two typical cases : — Leven, where there were 
6 geldable carucates and land to 4 ploughs ; and the converse 
case of Burstwick, where there were 4 geldable carucates, and 
land to 6 ploughs. 

Leven was a two-field township, with 6 carucates, and 
land to 4 ploughs. From the Inclosure Act it appears that 
there were two nearly equal fields. North Field and South 
Field, containing between them 962 ac. i r. 35 p., or 
an average of 481 ac. 37 p. in each field. Dividing this 

■ At Etton in the last century there were three fields, and the oxgangs con- 
tained only 6 acres. Etton was in the fee of Maaley, in which 12 oxgangs seem 
to have gone to the carucate ; at least this was the case at LAytham and Good- 
manham in the same fee. With 12 oxgangs to the carucate, the carucate would 
contain 72 acres in each field, ut, 60 by the great hundred. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 169 

by 6, we get 80 ac. 33 p., which is the normal geldable 
carucate in a two-field manor. But dividing by 4, the 
number of ploughs, we get 120 ac. i r. 9 p. to each plough, 
which is the normal arable carucate in ^ three-field manor, 
instead of the arable carucate of 80 acres usual in a two-field 
manor. 

Mr. Bethell, the owner of Leven, informs me that the soil 
in Leven is much lighter and easier to plough than in the 
neighbouring parishes ; there is very little of the stiff blue 
clay, while a great deal of land is peaty, and some is g^velly 
and sandy. Here then we have a two-field township in which 
the size of the carucate was the same as other adjacent two- 
field manors, but the land to each plough was 120 acres, as 
in normal three-field manors. Owing to the lightness of the 
soil the work could be done by two-thirds of the usual number 
of ploughs. 

Burstwick is an exceptional case of an opposite kind. 
Leven, with 6 carucates and 4 ploughs, is a two-field town- 
ship on light land ; Burstwick with 4 carucates and 6 ploughs 
seems to be a three-field township on stiff soil On the 
heavy Holdemess clay we have seen that a plough could till 
only 80 acres in the year, 40 in winter and 40 in Lent But the 
geldable carucate in a three-field manor was 60 acres, which, 
if clay land, would require i^ plough to till. Hence the four 
Domesday carucates at Burstwick would require 6 ploughs to 
till them, as Domesday records. 

In Nottinghamshire, where there is some very heavy land, 
the number of ploughs is occasionally double the number of 
carucates. If the oxen could plough only 30 acres in winter 
and 30 in spring, the normal three-field carucate of 180 acres 
would require two ploughs, and the number of ploughs would 
be double the number of carucates instead of half.^ 

' In some counties where the carucates or hides instead of being double the 
ploughs are only one-half or in some smaller ratio, I suspect that it is simply a 



I70 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

In the East Riding, as we have seen, Fleta's account of 
the normal size of the canicate in two-field and three-field 
manors holds good when brought to the test of experience. 
But whether it holds good in other districts is a question to 
be investigated by persons possessing local knowledge.* It 
may be that in some southern counties, where three-field 
husbandry was practised on clay soils, the hide or canicate 
contained 120 acres, forty in each field, instead of sixty. 

There would be a reason for this, as there is a reason for 
the size of the canicate in the East Riding. There, as we have 
seen, the two-field shift with its tillage carucate of 80 acres 
prevailed over the Holdemess clay, while the three-field shift, 
with its tillage carucate of 120 acres, prevailed over the chalk 
hills of the Wolds with their thin light soil. The reason is 
not far to seek. 

Mr. Robert Wyse, of Malton, who has an extensive 
business as a land agent in the East Riding, informs me that 
the draught cattle required to work a farm in Holdemess, 
and a farm on the Wolds, bear the same proportion to each 
other that they did at the time of the Domesday Survey. He 
says that in stocking a farm he reckons that a team which 
could cultivate sixty acres on a Wold farm could only till 
forty acres on a Holdemess farm. The cause of the difference 
is not merely the greater tenacity of the soil, but chiefly the 
amount of moisture which it retains. On the Wolds, with a 
chalk subsoil, the land is dry enough for ploughing soon after 

question of nomenclature, the plough being regarded as the unit of geldation and 
the carucate or hide as the unit of aration, and not the other way, as in the York- 
shire Domesday. 

* I would especially direct the attention of local inquirers to Derbjrshire, where, 
if we may judge from Domesday, the two-field shift was more commoa than in 
any other county, and to the Lindsey and Kesteven Ridings of Lincolnshire, 
where, to judge from some old estate maps to which I have had access, the con- 
ditions are as favourable for such an inquiry as in the East Riding. The counties 
of Huntingdon, Berks, Wilts, North Hants, Warwick, and Oxford, w^here indo 
sures have been comparatively recent, might also repay investigation. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 171 

rain, and horses can work all the year through on nearly 
every day except when it is actually raining, whereas in 
Holdemess, as soon as rain falls, ploughing has to cease till 
the land dries. A team of two horses can manage about an 
acre a day, but in Holdemess there are barely forty days in 
autumn and forty in spring during which the horses can get 
on to the land, whereas on the Wolds they can work nearly 
every day, except when there is frost Hence we see why 
the Domesday arable carucate in the two-field Holdemess 
township was eighty acres, or eighty days' work, half, as Fleta 
says, for winter ploughing, and half for Lent ploughing, while 
in the three-field Wold townships the arable carucate was 120 
acres, 60 acres in one field for winter ploughing, and 60 in 
another for Lent ploughing. But in the South of England, 
where the three-field shift seems to have been usual on all 
soils, it would be more convenient on clay land for the caru- 
cate to consist of 120 acres, 40 in each of the three fields. 

I have confined myself in this paper to the area of the 
carucate, leaving the more difficult question of the area of the 
hide to other inquirers. The hide in Bede seems to denote 
the holding of one household, and may probably be equivalent 
to the Virgate or Husbandland of later times. But the 
Domesday Hide of the southern counties must generally 
correspond, as the unit of assessment, to the carucate of the 
North. Mr. Pell * has cited several cases in point. Thus at 
Oakington, in Cambridgeshire, the hide in the Placita (18 
Edw. L) is said to contain 120 acres, and at Shepreth the 
Hundred Rolls mention a hide of 120 acres. At Rattendon, 
in E^ex, according to a MS. of 1277, the parson holds half 
a hide, which contains sixty acres. It may be a question 
whether these measurements refer to the whole hide, or only 
to the part tilled in any one year — that is, whether the whole 

* Pell, On the Domesday Geldable Hide^ in Cambridge Antiquarian Society's 
Communications, vol. vi. p. 70. 



172 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

hide, including the fallow, was i8o acres or 120. Some light 
is thrown on this question by an entry in the Domesday of 
St. Paul's^ which tells us that at Runwell hida continet sexcies 
viginti acraSy -ul antiqua inquisitio dicit quod nan consuevit 
continere nisi quatuar viginti. I take this significant statement 
to mean that a two-field manor had been converted into a 
three-field manor. At the time of the antiqua inquisitio the 
hide contained 80 acres always under plough in a two-year 
shift, or 160 in all, including the idle shift In 1222, when 
the new Inquisition was made, the hide contained 120 acres. 
If the hide of 80 acres excluded the idle shift, so, we must 
hold, did the hide of 120 acres, Apparently twenty acres 
had been taken in from the pastura^ and added to the whole 
hide of 160 acres, making 180 acres in all, and this was then 
redivided into three fields, giving 60 acres in each field, or 
120 acres in the two tilled fields. 

If this explanation be correct, it tends to show that Fleta's 
statement as to the size of the carucate, which it has been 
the object of this paper to establish and explain, holds good 
in the South of England as well as in the North. But on this 
point I do not offer any positive opinion, as I do not possess 
the local knowledge on which alone trustworthy conclusions 
can be based. But, so far as the East Riding of Yorkshire 
goes, Fleta's statement appears to me to have stood satisfac- 
torily every test that could be applied to it. If it can be 
extended, by other investigators, to the rest of England, 
many volumes of Domesday exposition, including among 
others Mr. Eyton's 'Key to. Domesday,' may be finally 
consigned al limbo dei bambini. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 173 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE A (p. 159). 

Thb Number of Bovates in a Carucatb. 

The carucate being the quantity of land tilled by one plough, and 
the nonnal plough being drawn by eight oxen, a bovate, which was 
originally the share of the tilled land appropriated to the owner of 
each of the associated oxen contributed to the co-operative plough, 
was normally one-eighth of a carucate. A demonstration that eight* 
bovates went to one carucate is obtainable from the Yorkshire 
Domesday, in which county the holdings are first enumerated under 
the names of the tenants in capite^ and are then summarised in 
a sort of index under the Hundreds. The following incidental 
statements show that eight bovates were assumed to make one caru- 
cate. 

1. Drogo's land at Preston is entered in the text as 11 bovates, 
and in the index as i carucate and 3 bovates. 

2. The King's land at Belby is given in the text as 4 bovates, and 
in the index as half a carucate. 

3. The Archbishop's land at Tickton is given in the text as 12 
bovates, and in the index as a carucate and a half. 

4. The land belonging to St John of Beverley at Routh is given 
in the text as 15 bovates, and in the index as one carucate and 7 
bovates. 

5. At Leavening the king holds two parcels of land, one of 10 
bovates, and the other of i carucate and 6 bovates. In the index it 
is entered as 3 carucates in all. 

6. At Sutton, in Scard Hundred, the king holds two parcels, one 
containing half a carucate, and the other 2 carucates and 2 bovates, 
which are added up in the index as 2 carucates 6 bovates. 

7. At Sutton in Holderness the Archbishop holds 9 bovates, which 
is entered in the index as i carucate and i bovate. 

8. At Kirby Underdale the king holds three parcels containing 



174 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

respectively 6 bovates, 4 carucates and 2 bovates, and i canicate, which 
are added up in the index as 6 canipates. 

9. At Anlaby the king holds two parcels, one of 9 bovates and 
the other of 2 carucates, which are added up as 3 carucates i bovate. 

10. At Belby, the Bishop of Durham held half a canicate, which 
is entered in the Clamores as 4 bovates ; and also one canicate and 
6 bovates, entered in the Clamores as 14 bovates. 

11. In the soke of Howden the Bishop of Durham held half a 
canicate, and also 3 carucates 2 bovates, which are added up as 3 
carucates 6 bovates. 

In these cases it is assumed that 8 bovates made i canicate. 

There is much post- Domesday evidence to the same effect For 
instance Esk is returned in Domesday as containing 2 carucates, 
which is given as 16 bovates in a Survey of 6 Edw. I. 

At Elstemwick 4 Domesday carucates reappear in 1766 as 32 
oxgangs. 

In 1228 Ralph of Skirlington gives 14 bovates at Atwick, which 
are described as consisting of a certain canicate, and 6 specified 
bovates, 2 in one place, 2 in another, and 2 in a third.* 

Among the aids for knighting the Black Prince, we find in the 
fee of Roos, 20^. as the aid for 2 carucates, 5^. for half a canicate, 
j^d. for 6 bovates, 2^d, for 2 bovates, and 1^, for one bovate.' 

We now come to deal with certain exceptions. In the reign 
of Edward I. and afterwards, we occasionally find that 12 bovates 
went to the canicate. Thus at Laytham, in 1255, Peter de Mauley 
confirmed to the canons of Ellerton 6 bovates, being half a cani- 
cate.' But two centuries earlier, in this very manor, the canicate 
must have consisted not of i^ bovates but of 8 ; since in Domes- 
day, Gislebert Tison holds 11 bovates in Laytham, which are 
entered in the index as i canicate and 3 bovates ; while these 11 
bovates together with 7 bovates in Willitoft and 2 carucates in 
Gribthorpe, are added together as 4 carucates and 2 bovates ; show- 
ing by a double proof, that in 1086, 8 bovates made a canicate in 
Laytham, and not 12, as was the case in 1255. How can this 
change be accounted for? A canicate of 12 bovates might arise 
from the conversion of a two-field manor into a three-field manor. 
With a two-field shift the arable canicate of 80 acres would contain 

» Poulson's Holdemess^ vol. L p. 179. ■ Ih. p. 6a 

« Burton, MonastUon Eboratensty p. 261. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 175 

8 bovates of 10 acres each, but on conversion into a three-field shift, 
a normal arable carucate would contain 120 acres, and the bovates 
by custom would still be reckoned as 10 acres each, but there would 
be 12 of them, instead of 8. 

Or possibly the statement in the MonasHcon may be explained 
in a still simpler way. In a normal three-field manor, the carucate 
of 120 tilled acres would contain 8 bovates of 15 acres each in the 
two tilled fields. But if Peter de Mauley gave half of the whole 
carucate of 180 acres in severalty to the canons of EUerton his gift 
would consist of 90 acres, which might be reclconed as 6 bovates of 
15 acres each, being half a carucate. 

There are, however, some other cases in which it is stated that 
12 bovates made a carucate. Thus at Swine, in 1325, we are told 
that 12 bovates made one carucate,' and at East Halsh^^ni^^ the fee 
of Bautry, the carucate contained 12 oxgangs.' Also sct^^ood- 
manham 12 bovates made a carucate, since Adam de Linton (i3t1i 
century), confirmed 6 oxgangs, being half a carucate, to the canons 
of EUerton.' Here, possibly, there may be an exception to the 
Domesday rule, that 8 bovates made a carucate. In Domesday the 
King holds one carucate and a half at Goodmanham, land which is 
entered in the index as i carucate and 5 bovates. If this be not a 
clerical error,^ it would seem that here 10 bovates made a carucate 
in 1086. At Goodmanham the hills are very steep, and possibly 10 
oxen were required to draw the plough instead of 8 as usual, a 
number afterwards increased to 1 2. 



NOTE B (p. 162). 
The Evidence of the Boldon Book. 

The Boldon Book, which has been published by the Surtees 
Society, is a Survey of the manors belonging to the See of Durham, 
compiled in 11 83 by order of Bishop Pudsey. A comparison with 
Bishop Hatfield's Survey of the same manors, taken nearly two 

' Kirby's Inquest, pp. 440, 442. * Poulson's Holdemess, vol. i. p. 62. 

' Burton, Afon. Ebor, p. 260. 

* There are some undoubted clerical errors in Domesday. Thus the Bishop 
of Durham holds at Belby 3 carucates and 2 bovates, and also half a carucate, 
which are added up as 4 carucates and 6 bovates. Plainly the figures in. and 
nil. have been confiised. At Towthorpe, in like manner, ii. and ni. have been 
apparently confused. 



176 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

centuries later, affords curious information as to the gradual dis- 
int^;ration of the old holdings and the changes in the tenures. 

The only direct statement as to the area of the carucate contained 
in the Boldon Book will be found at p. 34, where we read, Eudo de 
Lucels tenet in Famacres 1. carucatam de cxx, acris. This shows that 
in 1 183, less than a century after Domesday, the arable carucate on 
the borders o£»Yorkshire, near Sunderland, was 120 acres, equivalent, 
with the idle shift, to 180 acres. Carucates of the same area are 
indicated by the scatpennies paid, which were usually 2d. an acre J 
Thus we have one carucate held at 20;. and four cases of half caru- 
cates held at 10s. which imply 120 acres of tillage, or x8o acres to 
the whole carucate. The holdings of the villans are usually 2 bovates, 
and the acreage of these bovates mostly supposes carucates of the 
same dimensions as above. No less than 12 16 bovates of 15 acres 
are enumerated. They are either expressly said to be of that size, 
or are shown to be so by the scatpennies of 2s, 6d. per bovate.' 
These bovates of 15 acres imply three-field carucates of 60 acres in 
each field. 

A carucate of 160 acres in a two-field manor would be 192 acres 
by the great hundred, or 96 acres in each field, and the bovate would 
be 12 acres. The Boldon Book enumerates 196 bovates of 12 acres, 
and 34 half-bovates of 6 acres, held usually by cotmen, which imply 
carucates of 96 tilled acres. That the cotmen held by the AngUcus 
numerus^ and by a two-field shift, while the villans held by the 
Norman number, and in a three-field shift, may indicate that the 
cotmen belonged to an older stratum of population than the villans. 

We have also in the Boldon Book indications of the conversion 
of two-field manors into the more profitable three-field shift, in 
which only one third instead of one-half of the land lay in faUow. 

This could be done in several ways. A two-field carucate of 
192 acres (160 by the great hundred) if redivided into three fields 
would give carucates of 64 acres in each field, and corresponding 
bovates of 8 and 16 acres. Or the change might be effected by 

* Thus 15 acres pay 2s, dd,^ and 12 acres pay 2J. The scatpennies are occa- 
sionally more or less, according to the nature of the services rendered, but are 
almost always so many pence per acre. 

> That the acreage of the bovates in the Boldon Book may be safely inferred 
from the scatpennies is shown by a reference to Bishop Hatfield's Survey, in which 
the acreage of the bovates is often stated in townships where only the scatpennies 
are given in the Boldon Book. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 177 

taking in a third field from the pastura. Thus we should get 
bovates of 10 and 20 acres, or of 12 and 24 acres by the great 
hundred The Boldon Book enumerates 80 bovates of 16 acres 
and 70 of 8 acres, all in the same neighbourhood, while there are 
22 bovates of 20 acres and 213 bovates of 12 acres, which, however, 
may be original two-field bovates. At Warden there were 18 bovates 
of \'^\ acres. These may be bovates in a three-field manor by the 
great hundred which had lapsed into a two-field shift, giving caru- 
cates of 108 acres in each field, or bovates of 13^ acres. Or they 
may be explained as carucates of 192 acres, with 12 bovates to the 
carucate. 

There are also 14 bovates of 9 acres and 2 of 18 acres, which are 
bovates in a three-field manor by the great hundred. 

Of the 1,659 holdings whose area is given directly or indirectly 
in the Boldon Book there is only one which conflicts with Fleta*s 
statement as to the size of the carucate. This is a holding of 37 
acres, which, however, is shown by the scatpennies to have been 
reckoned as a holding of 40 acres, or 2 bovates of 20 acres each. 



NOTE C (p. 162). 

Areas of Carucates deduced from Monastic Charters. 

(i.) Carucates of 60 acres. 

At Rokeby, in the Wapentake of Gilling East, William de Gilling 
confirmed to Fountains Abbey one oxgang containing 6 J acres at 20 
feet to the perch. This would be 7 ac. 3 r. 2 1 p. by. the standard perch, 
and the carucate would be 63 ac. or. 8 p.' 

At Salton, near Helmsley, in the North Riding, the bovates in the 
demesne were 7^ acres, giving a carucate of 60 acres.* 

The same was the case at Flaxton near Mai ton.' 

At Little Barugh, in Kirby Misperton parish, there were bovates 
of 8 acres, giving carucates of 64 acres.^ 

At Winksley, in Claro Wapentake, Nicholas de Bellon gave to 
Fountains Abbey one oxgang containing 12 acres at 22 feet to the 
perch.^ This would be 16 statute acres, giving a carucate of 64 acres 
in one field. 

At Normanby, in the North Riding, Richard Loftus gave to 

' Burton, Monasticon Eboracense^ p. 191. * Liher Niger of Hexham^ p 73. 
• lb. p. 80. * lb, p. 66. * Burton, Mon. p. 208. 

VOL. I. N 



178 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

Rievaulx Abbey one oxgang of 15 acres at 20 perches to the acre, 
which would be 7 J standard acres at 40 perches to the acre. The 
carucate was therefore a carucate of 60 acres in one field of a 
normal three-field manor.^ 

At Stainbum, in Claro Wapentake, Helias de Staynbum gave 
one oxgang, containing 8 acres, to Fountains Abbey. The carucate 
would therefore be 64 acres.* 

At Ingelby, Robert son of Ralph quitclaimed to the Priory of 
Gisbum half a carucate, in which are 62 acres in tofts, and 5 acres 
of meadow. This would be a carucate of 124 acres in two fields of 
a three-field manor, or 62 acres in each field.' 

But at Ingelby the Priory of Hexham held a bovate of 15 acres, 
implying a carucate of 60 acres only. 

(2.) CarucaUs of 12 acres^ or 60 by the great hundred. 
At Greenberry Grange, in the township of Scorton and the 
Wapentake of Gilling East, the oxgang contained 18 acres. Hence 
the carucate would be 144 acres, or 72 in each field.^ 

At Dishforth, in 1286, Radulph de Disceford gave 143 acres to 
Fountains Abbey, with as much pasture as belongs to one carucate.^ 
At Winksley, in Claro Wapentake, William de Carleton quit- 
claimed to Fountains Abbey a carucate of 140 acres (ie. 70 acres 
in each field) together with 20 acres of meadow and 20 acres of wood- 
land« 

At North Cowton, near Richmond, Rainer de Couton confirmed 
to Fountains Abbey the fourth part of half a carucate, containing 
26 ac. 3 r. which his father had given. The carucate would be 214 
acres in three fields, 71 ac i r. 13 p. in one, or 142 ac 2 r. 26 p in 
two.^ 

At Great Barugh,® near Malton, and at Stainton-le-Street' in 
Durham, there were bovates of 18 acres, implying carucates of 144 
acres in two fields, or 72 acres in one 

At Little Barugh,*<^ at Edston," and at Brawby, all near Malton, 
the bovates were of 9 acres, and the same was the case with the 
bovates in villanage at Salton.^* 

' Burton, Monasticon Eboracensiy p. 362. • Ih. p. 202. • ^. p. 347. 

« lb, p. 167. » lb, p. 162. Cf. Kirbjr's Inquest^ p. 183. 

• Burton, Mm, p. 208. » lb. p. 159. 

• Liber Niger of Hexham, p. 68. • lb, p. 6a »• lb, p. 66. 
" /*. pp. 77, 78. »* lb. p. 73. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 179 

(3.) Carucates o/So acres. 

At Birkhou, in the township of Baldersby, Cecilia de Stuteville 
gave one carucate of land, in which are 80 acres, to Fountains 
Abbey." 

AtEUerwick, in 121 2, the demesne lands of the Priory of Gisbum 
were settled to be 481 acres, which seems to be 3 carucates of 160 ac. 
ir. 13 p. '^ 

Skene quotes a case from the north of Scotland in which half a 
carucate contained 80 ac.* 

In the South of England there are traces of two-field manors, as 
in the case of Herfortun where the carucate was 160 acres,^ though 
the three-field system seems to have been more general than in the 
more backward counties of the North. 

(4.) Carucates of ^6 acres. 

At Kirkby in Cleveland,* and at Chesterhope in Redesdale,® the 
bovates were 1 2 acres, implying carucates of 96 acres. 

Walter Carrou gave to Gisburn Priory 2^ oxgangs in Sethon, 
containing 60 acres. Hence the oxgang would contain 192 acres, or 
96 in each field.^ 

William de Brettevilla gave to the same Priory one oxgang of 12 
acres in the fields of Gisbum.® 

At Rainton, in the North Riding, the oxgang contained 12 acres. ^ 

NOTE D (p. 163). 

The Length of the Perch, and the Area of the Acre. 

We occasionally meet with records of acres which are said to be 
measured by the perch of 10, 16, 19, 20, 22, and 25 feet, instead of 
16^ feet, as in the standard acre, and also of acres at 18, 20, and 22 
perches to the acre instead of 40. See the cases quoted from 
Dugdale's Monasticon by Ducange, s,v, Fertica, Carrucata, and 
Quarentena, Other instances will be found in Burton's Monasticon, 
pp. 170, 178, 181, 190, 191, 208. The carucates containing these 
abnormal acres, if reduced to standard acres, will, however, be found 
to conform to Fleta's rule. 

» Burton, Man, p. 152. * lb, p. 343. 

• Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. iii. p. 225. 

* Nasse, Agricultural Communities^ p. 57. 

» Liber Niger 0/ Hexham, p. 70. • lb, cf. pp. 31 and III. 

' Burton, Man, p. 352. • lb. p. 344- * ^b. p. 195. 

N 2 



i8o THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

It may be noted that a carucate of 80 acres by the perch of 20 
feet, would be nearly equal to a carucate of 96 acres by the standard 
perch ; and a carucate of 120 acres by the perch of 10 feet to a 
carucate of 80 acres by the standard perch ; and 80 acres by the 
perch ef 25 feet to 120 acres by the standard perch. Hence bovates 
and carucates by the great hundred of six score, if measured by the 
great perch of 20 feet, would be equivalent to bovates and carucates 
by the small hundred of five score measured by the small perch of 
16J feet 

By varying the length of the perch it would also be possible to 
reduce to a common standard the bovates in two-field and three- 
field manors. The normal two-field bovate of 10 acres measured by 
a zo foot perch would be counted as 15 acres, and vice versd^ the 
normal three-field bovate of 15 acres measured by a 25 foot perch 
would be counted as 10 acres. We may thus possibly find a reason 
for the exceptional employment of these local perches. The perch, 
or virga^ was itself doubdess merely the oxgoad, which, laid upon the 
ground at the headland, would conveniendy measure the breadth of 
the rig or sellion to be ploughed. 

NOTE E (p. 164). 

Areas of Domesday Geldable Carucates, in Threb-field 
Townships, tested by Modern Surveys. 

It is easy to ascertain the size of the carucata ad geldum and of 
the terra ad unam carucam in the township of Burton Agnes, of 
which there is an excellent Estate Map, made in 1809.' Till 1856 
Burton Agnes remained in three open fields, divided into oxgangs 
and half-oxgangs by turf balks. We can therefore compare the 
modem measurement of the arable with the Domesday record. In 
1809 there were 999 ac. or. 18 p. in the three fields. East Field, 
Middle Field, and West Field. At some early time the lord seems 
to have inclosed between 80 and 90 acres, probably his demesne 
land, out of the common arable fields, as is indicated by the fact 
that the land lies in runrig. We thus obtain between 1,080 and 1,090 
acres for the whole Domesday arable, which makes it possible to 
apply a definite test as to how the geldable carucate was estimated, 
whether in one field or in two. The arable averaged a little more than 
360 acres in any one field, 720 acres in two, or 1,080 in all three. 

' See p. 55, supray where the map b reproduced, 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH i8i 

At the time of the Domesday Survey there were 12 geldable 
carucates and land to 6 ploughs. According to Fleta the carucate 
would be 60, 120, or 180 acres according to whether it was reckoned 
in one, two, or three fields. Knowing the size of the fields at 
Burton Agnes, we can ascertain by a positive test which of these 
areas was the geldable carucate of Domesday. By a simple division 
we ought to get the 12 Domesday carucates as a quotient by 
dividing the number of arable acres by the number of acres in the 
carucate. We will first try whether the geldable carucate was 180 
acres. 

We have 

io8o-m8o«6 
720-m8o«3 
360 -M 80 B 2. 

In no case do we get the required quotient, which is 12. We 
next try 120 acres for the geldable carucate. 

1080 -M 20^9 
720 -M 20-6 

36o-rI20=3. 

We then try 60 acres, and obtain 

1080 -h 60= 18 

720-h60Bl2 

360+ 60s 6. 

In one way only, by dividing 720 acres, the whole of the land 
tilled in any one year, by 60 can we obtain the required quotient ot 
12 which is the number of geldable carucates given in Domesday. 

There was land to six ploughs, and we see from the foregoing 
calculations that we get 6 as a quotient in three ways, showing that 
6 ploughs would suffice to till the land, whether we reckon the 
carucate at 180 acres in all three fields, or at 120 acres in the two tilled 
fields, or at 60 acres in any one field. 

Therefore we are led to the conclusion that in a three-field 
manor the geldable carucate of Domesday was 60 acres — that is, it 
was the quantity tilled in one arable field in one year by one plough, 
whereas the whole quantity tilled in one year by one plough was' 120 
acres, or 60 acres in each of the fields tilled in any one year. Thus, 
and thus only, as it seems to me, can we explain why in three-field 
manors the number of geldable carucates is usually double the 



i82 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

number of caruca. The cartuata ad geldum is 60 acres, while the 
terra ad unam carucam is 1 20 acres. 

Hence we obtain the rule for finding the area of a Domesday 
carucate in a three-field manor. 

Divide two-thirds of the whole arable by the number of geldable 
carucates, and we get the area of one geldable carucate. 

Divide it by the number of ploughs, and we get the area tilled 
annually by each plough, />. the terra ad unam carucam. 

Thus at Burton Agnes 720-+- 12 = 60 acres for the geldable 
carucate, and 720 h- 6 = 120 acres, for the arable carucate. Again, 
to find the acres of arable in a three-field manor, add one-half to 
the number of Domesday carucates, and multiply by 60 ; or, which 
comes to the same thing, multiply the number of Domesday geldable 
carucates by 90, and we get the acres of arable in all three fields. 

We may now proceed to test these results in other townships. 

The parish of Burton Agnes comprises not only the township 
of Burton, but the townships of Haisthorpe and Thomholm. Of 
these also I have surveys taken prior to the inclosures, and they give 
similar results. In the three fields of Haisthorpe there were 547 ac 
or. 20 p., giving an average of 182 ac. 1 r. 20 p. in each field, or 
364 ac. 3 r. op. in any two fields. According to Domesday there 
were six geldable carucates, and land to three ploughs. Hence we 
obtain 364 ac. 3 r. o p. -1- 6 ^ 60 ac. 3 r. 6 p. as the size of each geld- 
able carucate, while 364 ac. 3 r. 6 p. -^ 3 = 1 2 1 ac. 2 r. 1 3 p. is the land 
to one plough, or, as we may call it for convenience, the area of the 
arable carucate. 

At Thornholm there were about 670 acres in the three fields, or 
446 on an average in any two. From Domesday we learn that in 
Thirnon there were 7 geldable carucates, which gives as before 63 ac. 
2r. 34 p. for the geldable carucate and 127 ac. i r. 28 p. for the 
arable carucate. 

At Langton there were, according to Domesday, 18 geldable 
carucates, while from a survey which must be earlier than 161 7 we 
learn that there were 1,717 ac i r. 27 p. in three fields, East Field, 
Middle Field, and West Field, or an average of 1,144 ac 3r. 32 p. 
in any two fields, which gives, as before, 63 ac 2r. 17 p. for each 
geldable carucate. 

Wold Newton is a township of which I have no ancient maps, 
but from the Ordnance Survey it appears that there were about 1,060 
acres in the three fields, East Field, West Field, and Top Field, 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 183 

giving 706 acres on an average in any two fields. According to 
Domesday there were 1 1 carucates and land to 6 ploughs. This gives 
67 aa I r. 18 p. to the geldable carucate, and 1 17 ac 2 r. 27 p. as the 
land to one plough. 

At Kirby Underdale, Domesday gives 6 carucates, which would 
be 48 oxgangs. By a survey taken in 1590 there were then 48 ox- 
gangs, containing 590 acres, which would ^give 65 ac 2r. 20 p. per 
carucate, or more probably 64 acres, as there is reason to suppose 
that 14 acres had been added to the arable from thepasfura. 



NOTE F (p. 165). 

Areas of Domesday Geldable Carucates in two-field 
Townships, tested by Modern Surveys. 

(i.) By the small hundred^ normally 80 acres, 

Catfoss in Holdemess was a two-field manor. We learn from 
Domesday that there were 6 carucates, and land to 6 ploughs. The 
two fields are called East Field and West Field. From a survey 
made in 1730, it appears that there were 936 ac. 2 r. 13 p. of arable 
in the two fields, or an average of 481 ac 3 r. 38 p. in each, which 
gives 80 ac i r. 13 p. for the carucate measured in one field, and 
160 ac 2 r. 26 p. in both. 

In Rowton, by a survey of 1740, there were 327 ac. 2 r. 11 p. of 
arable, or 163 ac 3 r. 5 p. in each field Domesday gives in Rughe- 
ton 2 carucates, and land to 2 ploughs, and in 1269 Matthew de 
Rowton held 2 carucates, namely the whole fee of Rowton. Hence 
the Domesday carucate was 81 ac 3 r. 22 p. in one field, and 163 ac 
3 r. 5 p. in both. 

Bewholme was at the time of the Inclosure ' in two fields, East 
Field containing 435 ac 2 r. 2 p., and West Field containing 417 ac. 
2r. op. There seem to have been ancient appropriations of 31 
acres out of the East Field, and of 25 out of the West Field. Hence 
the Domesday arable may be reckoned at 909 ac or. 2 p., or an 
average of 454 ac 2 r. 20 p. in each field According to Domesday, 
there were 5 carucates and 6 bovates ad geldum. Dividing by 5I 
we get 79 ac or. 7 p. as the area of the Domesday carucate. 

Rowlston lay in acre and half-acre strips till about 40 years ago, 

* Poulson's Holdemess, vol. i. p. 389, 



i84 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

when it was inclosed. There were two common fields, Middle Field, 
and Sea Field of which a part has now been washed away by the sea. 
The total acreage according to the Inclosure Map was 767 ac i r. 5 p. 
Deducting 347 ac. 3 r. 7 p. for the remains of the Sea Field, ^oi the 
tofts and crofls, and the outlying land called Rowlston Seats, whose 
name shows it was the summer pasturage for the cattle, we obtain 
4i9ac. ir. 38 p. as the area of the Middle Field. According to 
Domesday, there were in Roolfestone 5 carucates and 2 bovates. 
Dividing the present area of the Middle Field by 5^ we obtain 79 ac 
3 r. 24 p. for the Domesday carucate. 

In Rise there were, according to Domesday, two manors, one 
with 2 carucates and land to 2 ploughs, the other with 5^ carucates 
and land to 6 ploughs, or together 7^ carucates and 8 ploughs. From 
surveys made in 1702 and 17 16 it appears that there were then 
1269 ac. 3r. 19 p. in two fields, North Field and Mill Field, or an 
average of 634 ac. 3 r. 29 p. in each. This gives 79 ac. i r. 18 p. as 
the land to each plough, and 84 ac 2 r. 24 p. for the carucate.^ 

At Keyingham, according to Domesday, there were 8 carucates 
and land to 8 ploughs. According to the MS. of the Franchise Fee 
there were only 41 oxgangs, or 5^ carucates. This is explained by a 
charter which shows that in the reign of Henry I., Saltagh, a 
member and parcel of Keyingham, containing about 800 acres, was 
detached and given to the Abbey of Meaux. According to the 
Franchise Fee, each oxgang consisted of 10 acres in each arable 
field with Kimcroft, 4 roods in the Saltmarsh, 4 acres in the Ings, 4 
acres in each Carr, and 3 roods in the common ground, being balks 
and marstalls in the fields.' This is instructive, as showing how the 
bovates were made up of the original bovates of arable, with doles of 
pasture attaching to each. Each of the 41 oxgangs contained 33 ac. 
3 r. op., or 1383 ac. 3 r. in all. Hence Saltagh is plainly excluded, 
as the Domesday manor measured 2 leugas in length by i in breadth, 
which would give 2880 acres. The 41 oxgangs, each containing 20 
acres of arable, would amount to 820 acres, which agrees with the 
present amount, the two fields, East Field and West Field, containing 

' By an Inquisiiio post mortem taken in 33 Edw. L, it appears that Walter de 
Fauconberg held in Rise certain bovates each of 7 acres. If in Rise, as in the 
adjoining parishes of Swine, Coniston, and Halsham 12 bovates then went to the 
carucate, there would be 84 acres in each carucate, which agrees with the 
preceding calculation. 

' Poulson's Holdernessy vol. ii. p. 415. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 185 

about 650 acres between them, while there are about 170 acres in 
Kirncroft Hence the whole carucate in the two fields with Kirncroft 
was 160 acres, or 80 acres in each field. 

At Welwick the carucate was also 80 acres, as from the Notitia 
Parochialis we learn that in 1705 an oxgang contained 10 acres. ^ 

At Patrington in 1665 the fines for every oxgang were 20^., and 
for every acre arable, u. Hence the oxgangs, as at Keyingham, 
contained 20 acres in the two fields, North Field and South Field, 
or ten acres in each, and the carucate was 80 acres in one field and 
160 in both. 

(2.) Areas of two-field carucates by the great hundred^ normally 
96 acres. 

In Withernwick there are two well-marked fields, North End Field 
and South End Field. I have not been able to obtain access to the 
Inciosure Map, which is in private custody, but it appears from the 
Inclosure Act, passed 42 George III., that the open field contained 
about 1,500 acres in two fields. According to Domesday there were 
8 carucates. At 192 acres to the carucate, this would give 1,536 
acres, sufficiently near to the rough estimate of 'about * 1,500 acres, 
and some small crofts may have been inclosed between 1086 and 
1802. If 1,500 acres, evidently a round number, were the exact 
acreage of the open fields, the carucate would contain 93 ac. 3 r. o p. 

At Elstemwick, called Astenewic in Domesday, there were 4 caru- 
cates. In 1766 these 4 carucates are represented by 32 oxgangs, each 
containing about 28 acres on an average, viz. 12 acres in each arable 
field, and 4 acres of meadow ground in the Ings. Hence each 
Domesday carucate contained 192 acres, or 96 in each field. 

In 8 Henry IV., R. Todesham held 25 bovates, which, in the 
reign of Elizabeth, are described as 300 acres of arable, which gives 
12 acres to the bovate, proving that the bovates were then reckoned 
only in the tilled field, whereas in 1766 they are reckoned in both 
fields. It would appear that in the i6th century a man's 'terra' 
consisted only of that portion of the common field which he had a 
right to till in any one year, whereas in the i8th the ownership in 
severalty in the fallowed field was recognised. 

Brandsburton was inclosed in 1667. The decree for the inclo- 
sure throws considerable light on the system of open field tillage. 

' Lawton's ColUctions^ p. 421. 



i86 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

It is dated i8 Charles II., and sets forth a survey and agreement 
made in 1632, and recites that 'every man's land lay intermixed in 
several places and by several quantities together,' and that • in the 
common arable field of Brandsburton ' there were in the East Field 
1,174 acres, and in the West Field 1,321 acres, or 2,495 ^icr^s alto- 
gether, and that the custom was for < one of the said fields to be 
sowed one year, and the other field another year.* * According to 
Domesday,* Drogo had 12^ carucates, which would give 95 ac 3 r. 8 p. 
to the carucate, or 191 ac. 2 r. 16 p. in both fields. 



DISCUSSION. 

Mr. O. C. Pell said that they were all much obliged to Canon 
Taylor for the admirable papers that he had read to them. 
In regard to the relative positions of the Hundred and Wa- 
pentake, he thought he had shown fair ground to suppose that 
his views were correct, and he- was very glad to find that 
Canon Taylor agreed with his views (contained in his Cam- 
bridge paper that he sent to him) in regard to the practical 
effect that the method of counting used by the Anglo-Saxons 
would have in calculating areas. 

He wished he could entirely concur in his views in regard 
to the carucata. Unless he had misunderstood Canon Taylor 
(and it was very possible he had) he seemed to him to mis- 
apprehend the meaning of Fleta. Fleta spoke of the ploughs 
in the lord's demesne, aided as they were by the supplementary 
ploughs of the homines. In Fleta's directions he instructs the 
ofKcers concerned to arrange so that each demesne plough, 
aided as it would be by the tenant's ploughs, should in a 

* Poulson's Holdemess, vol. i. p. 270. 

' A carucate belonging to St. John of Beverley, and not included in Drogo's 
manor, seems to have been previously inclosed in severalty, and is therefore not 
included in the common field inclosed in 1667. 



THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 187 

two-course manor take 160 acres a year and in a three-course 
180 acres ; but it was impossible that Fleta should mean, or 
that the word ' carucata ' could mean, in any county, when 
used in regard to a tenant's plough, that a plough of two or 
four oxen could till an area of that size. In fact, in no county 
in Domesday could such a meaning be given to the word 
' carucata ' used as an areal measure therein. 

The word 'carucata' doubtless meant the land of one 
plough, but ploughs were not all of the same strength. There 
would be the smallest plough or carucata of all, consisting of 
one ox, as at Trewallen in Cornwall (Domesday, folio 123a) 
which is shown in the Exon Domesday, folio 214, to have 
joined with another ox in working one caruca^ consisting as 
appears by the Exon Domesday of the two oxen. Again, 
there would be the plough of one virgate, consisting of two 
oxen, which is repeatedly alluded to in Domesday as a 
carucata^ for instance at Derbei (Domesday Book, Tom. I. 
folio 269) in unaquaque hida sunt VI caruc. terrce^ meaning 
that in each hide of 120 acres there were six virgates of 20 
acres ; so also (in Domesday Book, Tom. I. folio 235b) they 
could read that in Medeltone in Leicestershire, * Ibi sunt VII 
hidcB et una carucata terrce et una bovata. In unaquaque hida 
sunt XII I I carucatce et dimidiuml the explanation being that 
the hides were in areas juxta estimationem Anglorum^ i.e. by 
the greater hundred, viz. 144 acres, giving virgates of about 
ten acres ; there would be the associated ploughs or carucce 
of the Ae?WMf^J (containing i, 2, 3, 4, or more virgates) making 
up terrce of 60, 72, 80, 90, 96, 108, etc, which very often were 
meant when the word carucata was used in regard to the terrce 
of the homines. There would be the libera carucata^ or the 
terra free from services on the lord's land. There would be 
the supposed carucata of the whole manor of 120 acres, which 
common standard Domesday Book calls a hida^ terra ad 
carucam^ or carucata ad geldum, and uses as the unit of assess- 



i88 THE PLOUGHLAND AND THE PLOUGH 

ment. There would be the lord's carucatay often double the 
size of the terra of the homines^ but varying according to the 
amount of help received from the caructe adjutrices of the 
homimSy and depending, amongst other things, on the extent, 
if any, to which such services had been commuted for money 
payments. Lastly, there would be the pattern plough of the 
demesne, indicated by Fleta, consisting of i6o or 1 80 acres. 
All these remarks apply to every county in England, including 
Yorkshire, and if Canon Taylor would take the trouble to work 
out the details of some manors in Yorkshire where bovates are 
mentioned, and where he could thus find out how many boves 
went to a plough (at Clifton, for instance, folio 313a, Domes- 
day Book) he would see that a 'car' in many instances 
implied the work of four bovesy and they could not possibly 
cultivate 160 acres in a year when they performed extra 
services on the lord's land. The fact that the words (x) car 
possunt ere in Yorkshire indicate the uniform taxable area 
of 120 acres, which might or might not have a further area 
of fallow of 60 in a three-course or 120 in a two-course manor 
attached to it, which would or would not be taxed according 
as it lay or did not lie in communi when it was unsown, and 
which if taxed would go to make up (as far as it could go) a 
second area of taxed land of 120 acres in extent. 

Some months back he had sent to Canon Taylor the 
paper which he had read at Cambridge two years ago, in 
which all this was explained. He could not exactly make 
out whether this was what Canon Taylor meant If it was, of 
course they both agreed. 



OJioitB on ®ome0bag (HtltamuB of 
£anb« 

By J. HORACE ROUND, M.A. 

Before commencing my notes on this thorny and notoriously 
most difficult subject, I cannot but quote the words of one of 
the editors of the Rolls Series, who, in his preface to the 
Gloucester Cartulary, writes of the attempt to define these 
measures of land : ' Such a proceeding is both rash and un- 
justifiable, and it is a rock upon which some of the commen- 
tators on Domesday have hopelessly wrecked their little bark ' 
(III. cix). In one sense such a verdict is justified. The con- 
fidence, we might even say the rashness, with which this 
subject has been approached, has been the cause of much 
unprofitable work, and of a more serious consequence, namely 
the spread of error. ' The dispersion of error,' Mr. Eyton 
observes, * is the first step in the discovery of truth.* ' I would 
ask you always to bear in mind this admirable maxim, 
especially when I find it necessary to disprove the assertions 
or the inferences of previous writers, which unless formally 
disproved, would rightly be deemed of validity as possessing 
the sanction of their authority. Indeed, it is one of our chief 
difficulties in dealing with the Domesday Survey, that so 
much has to be done in the way of clearing the ground before 

' Staffordshire Survey^ p. 177. 



190 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

we can begin to lay the foundations of that stable structure 

which modern scholarship is destined, we hope, to raise. 

Broadly speaking, Domesday commentators have hitherto 

been too ambitious. They would not begin at the beginning 

and work slowly upwards. They seemed to imagine, so to 

I speak, that it was all plain sailing. Unfortunately, one might 

j almost be led to say that the more we learn of Domesday the 

I less we find we know. We have still to study the grammar 

of our subject For my part, I would welcome the real ascer- 
tainment of any point, however small, bearing on the great 
I Record more cordially than a theory, however sweeping, how- 

I ever wide in its embrace, which did not rest on a secure foun- 

i dation, which could not be demonstrated and proved. 

j But now let me add that the problems of Domesday, 

though hard, are not insoluble, and that, thanks to the labours 
of modem students, we are really advancing. We do really 
know more than those who preceded us ; and specially, as we 
shall see, is this the case in the matter of measures of land. 

The stumbling-block over which so many have fallen in 
their researches on this question has been the use of the 
Glossary. On this Mr. Eyton has well observed, in the preface 
to his * Key to Domesday ' (p. i), that * Domesday is its own best 
interpreter, and that those who would understand Domesday 
thoroughly must get their knowledge from Domesday itself ; 
lexicographers and glossarists only perplex and mislead the 
Domesday student. The question for us here is, not what a 
word or expression may sometimes have meant etymologically, 
or in its various and successive uses, but what that word or 
expression did mean and must have meant ' in Domesday. I 
look upon this principle as of the utmost value and importance. 
Its earlier recognition would certainly have prevented incal- 
culable wandering from the right path. At the same time, by 
the side of this principle we should place that which was so 
well expressed in the preface of Sir Henry Ellis : — 'A patient 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 191 

comparison of Domesday Book with the registers of our 

earliest Abbeys is the surest way to accomplish its thorough 

illustration: and this is to be effected not merely by the 

examination of charters and partial surveys, but by the 

scattered details of an historical kind with which many of them 

abound' (pp. xv-xvii). To this I need only add that one of 

the most useful tasks that we could accomplish would be to 

compile an annotated list of all the other Surveys of the 

Norman period, and, if possible, even to publish a collection of 

all those not included in the Supplement to Domesday Book. 

The two principles described above are, as it happens, 

respectively exemplified in the labours and writings of two 

scholars to whose works I would now invite your attention. 

I mean Mr. Eyton and Mr. Seebohm. Mr. Eyton may, 

perhaps, fairly be described as the greatest of our Domesday 

scholars. He may be said to have saturated himself with the 

Record, and to have been virtually the only student who has 

really grappled with the Survey and explored its inmost 

recesses. Of Mr. Seebohm, as a living student, it is more 

difficult to speak freely. I cannot, however, refrain from 

describing his 'Village Community in England' as a truly 

epoch-marking work, or from recording my belief that it has 

made the definition of Domesday measures of land for the first 

time possible. * Mr. E)^on*s labours were of so specialist a 

character, and his disposition so retiring, that his Domesday 

studies are barely known outside the circle of real students. 

The great characteristic of his work was his marvellous and 

untiring industry. Of this his note-books, now the property 

of the nation, are the still eloquent witnesses. Whether his 

judgment or his critical acumen were equal to his devouring 

industry, I must be permitted humbly to doubt. Of this, 

however, you will later on have opportunities of judging. Of 

Mr. Seebohm's work the distinctive note is its thoroughness 

and its scientific method. From such study as I have made 



192 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

of these questions, I must confess that his work gives us a 
confidence which is not even inspired by that of our leading 
historians, who have not, as he has done, devoted themselves 
specially to this particular line of research. 

But the peculiar value as to Domesday land measures of 
the writings of these two eminent students, Mr. Eyton and 
Mr. Seebohm, is this. They have approached the same subject 
from different points of view. Domesday was the starting- 
point of Mr. Eyton ; it was the terminus ad quern of Mr. 
Seebohm. Mr. Eyton viewed it from above, from the stand- 
point of the crown and of its officers ; Mr. Seebohm ap- 
proached it from below, from the standpoint of the holders of 
land. Except in their virtual and independent agreement that 
the ploughland, the essential unit, was 120 acres, their conclu- 
sions have, at first sight, little in common. Yet it will, I hope, 
be possible to show that they are really in perfect harmony. 

Mr. Eyton's contribution to the study of the subject is 
thus described by his follower Mr. Waters, who, as some of 
you are doubtless aware, has trod closely in his footsteps : 

What number of acres was contained in the Domesday hide or 

carucate has been for generations a standing subject of controversy 

' amongst antiquarians, and had come to be regarded as an insoluble 

problem until the key was discovered by the late Mr. Eyton, the 

historian of Shropshire. He has proved to demonstration that the 

difficulty has arisen from the false assumption that the hide or 

carucate indicated a constant area, whereas they were in fact terms 

denoting fiscal value rather than areal quantity, so that the enormous 

variation of acreage in different hides is accounted for by the 

difference of their contributions to the Exchequer. The fact that 

the little manor of Hammoon in Dorset, which contained 877 

acres, was rated at five hides, while the great manor of Puddletown, 

extending over 4,126 acres, was assessed at half a hide, can only be 

explained by the theory that the hide or carucate was a measure of 

assessment, and not of acreage, and that it denoted a territorial 

holding of uncertain area, bearing a fixed and uncertain weight of 

taxation. > 

* Preface to Survey of Lindsey^ p. 5. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 193 

What Mr. Waters can have meant by a fixed and un- 
certain weight, I cannot profess to explain ; but the whole 
passage well describes the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Eyton. 
Mr. Seebohm, on the contrary, contends that the hide was an 
areal measure, and estimates what he terms ' the normal hide ' 
at ' 120 acres ' ; that is to say, in other words, he identifies the 
hide with the ploughland, which ploughland, Mr. Eyton admits, 
was 120 acres. 

It will now be my endeavour to harmonise these apparently 
conflicting views. The explanation of their seeming contra- 
diction is as follows. The three terms employed by Domesday 
for what was substantially the same thing, namely the unit of 
assessment, were the hide, the carucate, and the solin, this 
last; as you know, being peculiar to Kent. Now, admitting, 
as most probably will, after examining the array of evidence 
produced by Mr. Seebohm for his conclusions, that he has 
proved the existence of a real hide, composed of four real 
virgates, each of which normally contained some thirty acres 
of arable land, we cannot deny that the real hide was in fact 
the equivalent of the ploughland. Independent testimony to 
this, indeed, is borne by Henry of Huntingdon, when he writes 
thus plainly: ' Hida autem Anglic^ vocatur terra unius aratri 
cultura sufficiens per annum.' Now this is precisely what Mr. 
Eyton denies. His anxiety to establish his main point — in 
which, remember, he was perfectly right — namely, that the 
hide of Domesday (that is, the hida ad geldum) was not a 
measure of area, but a unit of geld assessment — led him to 
reject the conception of the hide as being ever a definite areal 
measure. 'To say, or to suppose,' he observes at the out- 
set, * that in the days of Ethelred, or at the date of Domesday, 
or at any other period, the word '* hide " indicated a constant 
area of 240 acres, or of any specific number of measured acres, 
would be most erroneous.' * 

' Key to Domesday y p. 3. 
VOL. I. O 



194 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

Mr. Seebohm, on the contrary, while insisting that the 
hide ' was a real areal measure/ is careful to add that the term 
hide was used in the Survey exclusively as the ancient unit 
of assessment' This much, surely, at any rate is clear : the 
hide as a unit of assessment — that is, the hida adgeldum — was 
divided, as the Inquisitio Geldi proves beyond a shadow of 
doubt, into four virgates. Assuming as I do that the hida 
adgeldum was and must have been strictly parallel to the hide 
as a measure of area, it follows that the latter also must at 
this time have been divided into four virgates. 

That is to say, the assessment of a manor was expressed 
in terms of the hide, which hide, as Mr. Seebohm has shown, 
was in truth the ploughland, or terra ad unam carucam. 
In normal cases the manor was assessed at as many hides as 
it contained ploughlands, and indeed Mr. Eyton himself ad- 
mitted that ' the individual hide of most manors appears in 
conjunction with a single plough gang or, as the Dorset 
Domesday expresses it, with a terra ad unam carucam.* ' But 
whereas, as he has further well shown, manors bearing the 
same amount of ploughland varied in value from other con- 
siderations, and whereas royal favour often intervened to 
lighten their normal liability, we find some assessed at more 
and some at less than the number of hides which they really 
contained. For, you must remember, the hide (or its equiva- 
lent) being the sole unit of assessment, the amount added to or 
deducted from the normal assessment could only be expressed 
in terms of the hide. Here, I think, Mr. Eyton's method is, 
in one sense, distinctly misleading. His plan of dividing the 
total area of a county by the number of its hides and then 
treating the quota as the normal iirea represented by the hide 
in that county, has a real value, as in the case of Lincolnshire, 
in that it affords a rough estimate of the relative prosperity 
and wealth of different counties and districts. But it has the 

* Village Community in England, p. 34. ' Key to Domesday ^ p. 13. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 195 

disadvantage of setting before us a false conception of the 
hide. Thus, for instance, in his * Antiquities of Shropshire * 
{xiu 83) he contends that the Domesday hide of Shropshire 
probably equalled something more than 240 statute acres. 
So also in his 'Staffordshire Survey' (p. 21) he asserts that 
* the average Staffordshire hide covered as much as 955 acres 
of such land as the Domesday Commissioners thought worthy 
of subsequent measurement and registration.' Lastly, in his 
'Key to Domesday' (p. 13) we find him stating of Dorset 
that * the average of the whole county gives between 230 and 
240 acres as the correlatives of the said hide,* and, further 
(p. 15), that the 'acra ad gheldum taken on the county average 
of about 240 acres per hide, represented the forty-eighth part 
of such average — that is, it represented about five modern 
acres.' Here I say that these expressions give us a false 
conception of the hide, because I do not believe that when 
the men of the time thought of the hide as an areal quantity 
they would think of it as anything but the normal area which 
the real hide represented. So, to take a modem illustration, 
if a house worth 400/. a year were valued for assessment at 
300/., this would not imply that anyone could thiilk of these 
300/. as representing 300 sums of 320 pence each, or indeed 
as representing anything else than pounds of 240 pence. 

You will now be prepared for the following theory. I 
hold that we have in the Domesday Survey three equivalent 
units of assessment — the Aide, the carmate, and the solin \ and 
that these three geld measures were parallel to the corre- 
sponding areal measures, namely to the real hide, and 
to the real carucate, and solin. And now let us see 
how these measures were divided. I look on this point as of 
some importance, because we find even the leading authorities 
speaking of the bovate as the eighth of a hide, or of the 
virgate as the fourth of a carucate. This produces confusion 
between two distinct systems. On the one hand, you see, we 



196 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

have the hide divided into four virgates; on the other, its 
equivalent, the carucate, divided into eight bovates. I want 
you specially to notice that the divisions were not the same 
in number. Thus, to express the eighth of a hide, it was 
necessary to speak of it as half a virgate. Conversely, to 
express the quarter of a carucate it was necessary to describe 
it as two bovates. We can study in the Peterborough Liber 
Niger the two systems side by side. Six manors are there 
assessed in terms of the hide and virgate, and three in terms 
of the carucate and bovate, none in terms of the hide and 
bovate, none in terms of the carucate and virgate. The two 
systems were radically distinct 

What should be the inference from this distinction ? It 
suggests, I think, two problems. First, why do we find, not 
one, but two distinct measures ? Secondly, what was respec- 
tively the origin of the two systems ? 

First, then, why do we find England, always excluding 
Kent, partly measured in Domesday by hides, and partly by 
carucates ? On this point Mr. Eyton writes as follows : 

There is a doubt whether the 'carucate' was ever used In terms 
as of a land-measure by the Pre-conquestual Saxons. Our own 
impression is that the term 'carucate' was introduced by the 
Normans, and that they intended thereby an estate which in point 
of value and capacity was closely analogous to the Saxon hide.^ 

The passage which Mr. Eyton quotes in support of this 
conclusion is that which Ellis similarly adduced, namely the 
entry in the fief of Striguil : — ^ In eodem feudo dedit Willelmus 
Comes Radulfo de Limesi 4 carucatas terre, sicut fit in 
Normannia ' (i. 162). I do not say that their inference was 
wrong, but I do think that Mr. Eyton's rendering (* according 
to that estimate of the carucate which obtains in Normandy' ) 
is a straining of the phrase ' sicut fit in Normannia.' I would 

* Key to Domesday ^ p. 17. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 197 

rather rely for the fact of the introduction of the carucate on 
the phrase of Ordericus, 'carrucatas quas Angli hidas 
vocant ' (viii 8) ; on the subsequent spread of the carucate at 
the expense of the hide system ; on the circumstance (which 
is not mentioned by Mr. Eyton, though, it strikes me, of great 
importance) that in Ireland the 'carucate' is the measure 
of land that we find in the charters of the Norman settlers ; 
and lastly that the carucate is found by a special usage, of 
which I shall say more anon, in the midst of otherwise hidated 
counties. But now arises this question. Why should the 
Normans introduce the 'carucate* as a substitution for the 
hide over a certain portion of England and not over the rest ? 
Further, as is brought out very forcibly in the subsequent 
Survey of Lindsey, the division of a county into carucates 
instead of hides was associated with its division into wapen- 
takes instead of hundreds, and with the subdivision of those 
wapentakes into miniature hundreds, each containing the 
fixed number of twelve carucates. Here we have an elabo- 
rate system, which we are actually, it would seem, asked to 
believe was not only introduced de novo by the Normans, but 
was even introduced as the result of caprice on the part of 
certain of the Domesday Commissioners ! Such, at least, is the 
contention of Mr. Waters, who follows, as I have said, in Mr. 
Eyton's footsteps, and who writes, in his preface to the 
* Survey of Lindsey ' : 

The procedure of the different sets of Commissioners was by no 
means uniform, and the variation in their method of working will 
usually enable us to determine from internal evidence what counties 
were comprised in the same circuit (p. 5). 

And he proceeds to explain that certain counties were pre- 
sumably included in the same circuit, 'as these counties 
were all surveyed on the same system,' namely that of the 
wapentake and carucate. It would really seem that Mr. 
Eyton himself may have similarly confused cause and effect. 




T58 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF'UVND 

and have seen in the division into wapentakes and carucates 
the independent action of the Commissioners themselves, 
rather than the recc^ition of an existing system. 

But the subject of the Commissioners and their respective 
circuits was one which possessed a fascination for Mr. Eyton, 
and to which, he himself tells us, he devoted * much study.' 
He found it, however, almost impossible to add much definite 
information to that which we already possessed, and in 
his * Staffordshire Survey * (p. 5 noU)^ he frankly confesses 
that in his ' Notes on Domesday ' he had committed to print 
some too hasty conclusions on the subject. * It is little better 
than a guess,' he writes, ' that Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, 
presided over the committee which visited Shropshire, Cheshire, 
and Staffordshire. It is still more of a guess that Osmund, 
Bishop of Sanim, previously Chancellor of England, presided 
over the committee which visited Lincolnshire and its as- 
sociated counties.' ' As usual Mr. Eyton here abstains from 
giving the ground for his ' guess * ; * I can, however, supply it 
Mr. E3^on had clearly noted an allusion contained in Heming's 
Cartulary. The passage runs 'domino Wlstano episcopo 
existente in legatione regis apud Ceastram.' From the fact 
that the Domesday Commissioners were termed 'legati 
regis,' Mr. Eyton (for we can trace the working of his mind) 
must have inferred that this passage alludes to the presence 
of Wulfstan at Chester as a Domesday Commissioner for the 
district. But the context points to an earlier date, and, as it 
happens, we can fix that date with precision. For on referring 
to the * Vita Wlstani ' (256) we read : * In eodem concilio apud 
Pedridan habito episcopatus ei Cestrensis a Lanfranco Archi- 
episcopo visitatio commissa est.' Thus Wulfstan did actually 
visit ' Shropshire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire ' (to quote Mr. 

' Domesday Notes ^ p. 1 1. 

' In the case of Osmund, it may have been suggested by a misapprehension of 
a passage in the Clamores of Lincolnshire (i. 377 b). 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 199 

Eyton's words), not, however, as he inferred, in the guise of a 
Domesday Commissioner, but on an episcopal visitation, some 
ten years before. Note, by the way, how the ' Vita Wlstani ' 
and the passage in Heming's Cartularj'' here confirm one 
another. 

The real solution is, of course, to be found, not in the 
caprice of any Domesday Commissioners, but in the fact that, 
full two centuries before the date of Domesday, the districts 
which in the Survey are measured by carucates had been 
settled by the Danish invaders and apportioned out anew 
among themselves. In few things is the record of Domesday 
more valuable than in its authentic witness to that great 
event which had happened so long before, and in the boun- 
daries it gives us for the district in which the Danes intro- 
duced their new system. A map of the carucated district in 
the Survey would be of great illustrative value, and would 
show us how closely that district coincided with Danish 
Northumbria and Danish Mercia.^ 

We may note that Dr. Stubbs, while ' admitting that the 
wapentake is found only in the Anglian districts,' and that it 
* may be a relic of Danish occupation,' ' ignores, it would seem, 
the evidence of the carucate, and of the hundreds intermediate 
between it and the wapentake. The existence of these peculiar 
Danish hundreds explains what would otherwise be a mystery 
of the Survey — namely, why Stamford in Lincolnshire, one of 
the Danish ' Five Boroughs,' should have been assessed at \2\ 
hundreds (* dedit geldum T.R.E. pro XII hundredis et dimidio '), 
an assessment at first sight incomprehensible. As each of these 
Danish hundreds contained but twelve carucates, the total 
assessment was only equivalent to 1 50 carucates — that is, to a 
hundred and a half in the hidated portion of England. Such 

' The same map ought to show the extent ot the < wapentake ' and of the 
*trithing' system. 
» Const, Hist, \, 96. 



20O NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

an assessment would be normal enough when compared with 
that of similar boroughs, and thus the mystery vanishes. I 
am not aware that this interesting point has ever been noted 
before. It may serve to illustrate the diversity of Domesday, 
and the varying denotation of its formal phraseology, when we 
find its 'hundred' meaning in one place more than eight 
times as much as it does in another. 

The same illustration is afforded by that special use of 
the carucate which has been ably discussed by Mr. Eyton in 
his study on the Dorset Domesday, and which he also dis- 
cusses in Staffordshire and Somerset. 'The introduction 
of the carucate,' he writes, 'into the Survey of a county 
normally divided into hides is one of the curiosities of Domes- 
day.' ^ He describes it as a conceptional and ii^eldable hide. 
It is the carucate, in this special use, which I have already 
described as very probably introduced by the Normans at 
the Conquest My own contribution on this point would be 
that the ' inland' of Oxfordshire will be found to correspond 
with the * carucates ' of Dorset* If this conclusion is correct, 
and I feel pretty confident on the subject, it should confirm 
the views expressed by Mr. Eyton both of the essentially 
ingeldable character of the 'carucate' in hidated counties, 
and also its introduction in that capacity by the Normans. 

We have, then, arrived at this conclusion : that the carucate 
system had been introduced into England by the Norsemen 
from the east in the ninth century, and that it was again intro- 
duced in the eleventh by the Normans, from the south. In each 
instance it had to contend with the established system of the 
hide and virgate, and, this being so, we are led to ask whence the 
latter venerable system can itself have been originally derived. 

We thus pass to the second problem, namely the origin 
of the respective systems. All that I would here insist upon 
is this : the carucata and the bovata (like the solin and the 

' Staffordshire Survey^ p« 24. * Sec my paper on * Danegeld.* 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 201 

jtigum) are both of them terms obviously derived from the 
team of oxen for the plough. And this ox team, you know, 
might be described as the basis of Mr. Seebohm's theory. 
But the hide and the virgate are, on the contrary, etymo- 
logically unconnected with plough or team. I merely state 
and insist upon the fact. I leav^ it to others to draw con- 
clusions.' 

We are now in a position to move forward. In the three 
Domesday measures of land, the hide, the carucate, and the 
solin, with their divisions, the virgate, the bovate, and the 
jugum, we recognise three names for the same unit of assess- 
ment, each of them parallel with real areal measures possess- 
ing the same names, which measures again all represent the 
same areal unit, viz. the ploughland. 

Let us now pass from these to the terra unius caruca or 
terra ad unam carucam. The circumstance to which we owe 
that Domesday phrase is this. The Normans found on coming 
here, as we have seen, three distinct names for the same 
measure of land ; they further found that each name possessed, 
two distinct meanings, according as it was used as an areal 
measure or as a unit for assessment For a national Survey 
these complications involved obvious confusion. It was, of 
course, possible to distinguish the hide and carucate when 
used as units of assessment, as the ' hida ad geldum ' or the 
' carucata ad geldum^ and this, indeed, was occasionally done. 
But the necessary juxtaposition of the areal measures with 
the geld units would still have led to much confusion if they 
appeared under the same name. It was therefore determined 
to enter the ploughlands — that is, the real areal hides, carucates, 
and solins — ^under the uniform formula, * terra unius carucae ' 
or * terra ad unam cafucam.' Thus the probable confusion 

* See my paper on the * Virgata ' in the English Historical Review (vol. ii.). 
setting forth a novel explanation of the term, and proving that the hide is the 
original unit, of which the virgate is only the subdivision (being essentially its 
quarter). 



202 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

« 
between what may be termed the objective and subjective 

sense of these three measures would be entirely avoided.* 

Observe here that this formula of mensuration was parallel 
to, and formed upon, one of the three existing systems — ^that, 
namely, of the carucate and bovate, which, as I have said, 
there is reason to believe, was the system favoured by the 
Normans. Thus, the terra ad unam carucam was divided into 
eight portions, each of them a terra ad unum bovem, just as 
the carucata, in both its senses, was divided into eight bovaUe. 
Thus, as the terra ad unam carucam was, in fact, but another 
name for the real areal carucata (that is, the 'carucata ad 
arandum'), it is not wonderful that it should have been 
generally confused with the carucata in its sense a unit of 
assessment (that is, the ' carucata ad geldum ' ). Thus, even 
Mr. Eyton, who has devoted so much study to the point, and 
has insisted on the essential importance of the distinction 
between the carucata terrce and the terra ad unam carucam^ 
himself failed, as is shown by a passage in his 'Key to 
Domesday ' (p. 24), to perceive that the relation of the bovata 
terra to the terra ad unum bovem was precisely that of the 
carucata terra to the terra ad unam carucam. Indeed, the 
entry he there discusses bears definite evidence to the fact So 
also one of the few slips in Mr. Seebohm's great work is his 
assertion that ' the hidew^s used in the Survey exclusively as 
the ancient unit of assessment, while the actual extent of the 
manor was described in carucates ' (p. 84).^ This is an actual 
and a serious error, for the carucate, like the hide, was, in 
the Survey, as we have seen, employed normally as a unit of 

> It must however be noted that, in the case of the carucata two other formulae 
are also found. The three may be thus algebraically expressed : — 
(i) < Ibi X carucatae. Terra^ caruds.* 

(2) < Ibi X carucatae quas^ ' (or ' et y ') carucae possunt arare.* 

(3) ' Ibi X carucatae et ' (or * in quibus ') ^y carucae possunt esse.* 

In all three of these formulae < carucatae ' and < carucatae terrae * are used indifferently. 
» Cf. p. 293. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 203 

assessment, while the 'actual extent' was described in terms 
of the terra ad unam carucam. 

But there are few more difficult problems in Domesday 
than the exact meaning of the term * carucata ' and its rela- 
tion to the normal ploughland. As with other terms employed 
in Domesday, there is the perplexing fact that 'carucata* 
may mean one thing in one place and one in another. It is 
quite certain that Domesday recognises the distinction be- 
tween the two senses in which ' carucata ' is employed, since 
•carucata terrae ad geldum regis' and 'carucata terrae ad 
arandum ' occur in the record in close conjunction (i. 280 [i]). 
It may further be asserted that the latter term equates the 
' terra uni carucae.' For instead of the usual formula ' terra 
totidem carucis,' we get on folio 276 the entry 'Henricus nunc 
[habet] liii car[ucatas] ad geldum et totidem car[ucatas] ad 
arandum.' Moreover, on collating the Inquisitio Eliensis 
(p. 528) with the Exchequer Domesday (i. 204), we get these 
important parallel expressions in the case of the Abbey's 
Huntingdonshire manors : 

Domesday. Inq. Eliensis. 

In Colne habet Abbas de Ely vi In Colne vi h[id3e] ad gel- 

hidas ad geldum. Terra vi carucis. . dum et vi i\arucat£e\ ad arandum. 

In Bluntesham . . . . vi hidas Bluntesham .... unum 

et dimidiam ad geldum. Terra manerium de vi hidis et dimidia 

VIII carucis .... In dominio ad geldum. Ad arandum viii 

terra 11 carucis, Ibi nunc in ^rtuat<z\ , . . Ipse habet li 

dominio 11 carucae. c[arucatas] exceptis predictis 

hidis. . . . Nunc ipse it carucas. 

In Sumersham .... viii hidas Sumersham .... viii hidis ad 

ad geldum. Terra xii carucis. geldum. Ad arandum xii {[aru- 

Et, exceptis his hidis, in domi- cata], . . . Ipse abbas 11 {[aru- 

nio terra 11 carucis. Ibi nunc catas] exceptis predictis hidis. 

in dominio 11 carucae. Symon abbas invenit 11 c[arucas]. 

Spalduuic. . . . Manerium de 

In Spaldvice . . . . xv hidas ad xv hidis ad geldum .... et xv 

geldum. Terra x\ carucis. caruccBpossuntarareittxzmistzm. 



204 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

The comparison of these formulae is, I consider, most in- 
structive. We have here the ' terra uni carucae/ equating the 
' carucata ad arandum/ and even the ' carucata ' unqualified. 
The difficulty, then, is reduced to this. The ' carucata ad 
geldum ' and ' carucata ad arandum ' speak clearly for them- 
selves, but the unqualified 'carucata' (or 'carucata terrae') may 
mean the ploughland in one place, and the unit of assessment in 
another. In such entries, for instance, as ' XXV carucatae quas 
possunt arare XIIII carucae ' (i. 299 b, 30s b\ the ' carucata ' is 
certainly a geld measure, but in Leicestershire it seems, on the 
contrary, to be used (though not invariably) to denote the 
ploughland. But then, Utit formula in that county appear to 
be very peculiar. We even find a few (a very few) instances 
of such singular farmuke as these : ' Ibi est i hida et 1 1 1 1 ta 
pars I hidae. Ibi sunt xxil carucatae terrae' (i. 231). * Ibi 
est I hida et Vita pars i hidae. Ibi fuerunt xxill car[ucae ? ] 
T.R.E.' (i. 231 b). ' Ibi sunt lie partes unius hidae ; terra est 
VI carucis' {lb,) 'Ogerus Brito tenet de rege 11 partes 
unius hidae idest XII carucatas terrae ' (i. 236). These four, 
it will be seen, are all slightly different. But there can be no 
question that the ' carucata terrae * here represents the ' terra 
uni carucae,* the ploughland. To Mr. E)rton, who strenuously 
insisted on the essential distinction between the ' carucata ' 
and the 'terra uni carucae,' such a passage, for instance, as the 
fourth of these, proved — as he confessed in his ' Staffordshire 
Survey' — a stumbling-block. But this was because he did 
not allow for the two distinct meanings which 'carucata' 
could bear in the Survey. It is probable, I think, that the 
' carucata terrae,' which occasionally occurs in hidated districts, 
was, contrary to his opinion, the ' carucata ad arandum,' not 
the ' carucata ad geldum.' 

A theory of great interest, and probably of entire novelty, 
is advanced by Canon Isaac Taylor with much ingenuity and 
erudition. He contends that the distinction between two- 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 205 

field and three-field manors is the key to the whole system. 
His theory is thus summed up : 

In the Domesday Survey of the northern shires two phrases occur 
in the account of ahnost every manor ; these are the carucata ad 
gtldum^ the ' geldable carucate,' which was the fiscal unit for pur- 
poses of taxation ; and the terra ad unam canuam^ the ' arable 
carucate,' which was the unit for agricultural purposes. ... In 
three-field* manors the 'DoxaesAzj carucata ad geldum yfdis normally 
sixty acres, the land tilled in one field in one year by one plough, 
while terra ad unam carucam was 120 acres, the land tilled in both 
fields in one year by one plough, and the whole carucate including 
fidlow was 180 acres. In two-field manors, both the carucata ad 
geldum and the terra ad unam carucam were 80 acres, and the whole 
carucate, including fallow, 160 acres, by the reckoning locally used, 
either the Norman hundred of five score, or the English hundred of 
six score.' 

This theory is no doubt right — as far as it goes. It ex- 
plains beautifully a relation between the geldable carucate 
and the ploughland which is so frequent in Yorkshire as to 
be, perhaps, the rule. It will be observed, however, that such 
a theory virtually converts the unit of assessment into an area! 
measure, and implies that the relation between the ' carucata 
ad geldum ' and the ploughland was constant This is, at 
first sight, contrary to the view on which I have insisted 
throughout — namely, that the unit of assessment must on no 
account be confused with the areal measure. Yet the two 
views are quite consistent Just as, according to Canon 
Taylor, a two-field manor ought to be assessed at as many 
carucata cut geldum as it contained terra ad unam carucam^ 
so we find, in the south of England, plenty of manors assessed 

> The Standard^ Noyember I, 1886. This may perhaps be a fitting place for 
calling attention to the grant by the Count of Meulan {Rot, Seace, Norm. I. dv. ) 
to the Abbey of Jumiiges, in 1 183, of *a carucate of land, viz. sixty acres of 
arable land, with the wood upon it, measured with a perch of 25 feet ' \i,e, the 
forest perch]. Recent research is said to show that the ploughlands introduced by 
the Crusaders into Palestine were of eighty acres. These two measurements would 
point respectively to the three-field and two-field system. 



2o6 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

at as many hicUe \adgelduni\ as they contained terra ad unatn 
carucant. But in the south the number of such manors was 
being continually diminished by the working of the assess- 
ment system, till the great majority were assessed at a number 
of hides which bore no relation to the number of their plough- 
lands, being sometime^ much above and sometimes much 
below it Now it must be seen that Canon Taylor's theory 
simply Ignores the operation of such a process ; it is not 
concerned with it; it only deals with the state of things 
before that process has come into play. Of course, as soon 
as it came into play, it would make havoc of any fixed rela- 
tion between the carucata ad geldum and the terra ad unafn 
carucam. 

If at the time when the Survey was taken that fixed 
relation between the ploughland and the united geld assess- 
ment was as much the rule in the north as it was the excep- 
tion in the south, we are led surely to a conclusion of histori- 
cal and political importance, viz. that the principle of assess- 
ment which had been acted on from the first in the south, had 
never, or hardly ever, come into operation in the north, where 
the assessment was almost solely regulated by the number 
of ploughlands, independent of all considerations of value or of 
favour. 

But if in Yorkshire, in the East Riding of which Canon 
Taylor's observations were made, we may accept this to have 
been the case, we cannot admit it as applicable to all ' the 
northern shires,' or, to speak more accurately, the carucated 
district. In Nottinghamshire, for instance, the relation of the 
carucata ad geldum to the terra uni carucce is quite diflTerent 
and would seem rather to resemble that of the hide to the 
ploughland. Here, then, the southern principle of assessment 
must already have come into operation. Canon Taylor's theory 
requires that the carucata ad geldum should stand to the terra ad 
unam carucam in the proportion of i to i or 2 to i, or some- 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 207 

thing between the two, where the systems are mixed. But in 
Nottinghamshire we find the proportion to be ' the other way 
up.' The former stands to the latter in the proportion of 2 to 3, 
I to 2, 3 to 8, I to 3, I to 4, 1 to 5, and even i to 8.* In Derby- 
shire also, though less marked, we find cases of 2 to 3, i to 2, 
&c. In that portion of Rutland which was surveyed with 
Nottinghamshire we obtain figures which, on more than one 
ground, are of singular interest and completeness. We learn 
that this district was divided into two wapentakes, and that 
each wapentake contained 48 ploughlands. (' Terra uni carucae,' 
or [' in qua] una caruca esse potest.*) But as one of these 
wapentakes comprised two hundreds, and the other only one, 
and as each of these hundreds, according to the rule {vide 
supra) contained 12 'carucatae ad geldum,' it followed that 
these twelve geld-carucates represented 24 ploughlands in one 
wapentake and 48 in the other, thus respectively standing in 
the proportion of i to 2 and i to 4. 

All this is but further proof of the urgent need for local 
research. When the whole carucated district has been care- 
fully covered by such research, we may obtain results of 
great interest, and find it possible to trace with exactitude 
the principle of assessment adopted in the various and (I 
think we may find) widely differing sub-districts. 

As to confusion between the ' caruca ' and ' carucata,' it 
is true that, as Mr. Seebohm complains, ' unfortunately the 
same contracted form serves in the Survey for both carucata 
and caruca^ Yet there should, to the modem student, be 
little danger of confusion ; sometimes, of course, there may 
be a real doubt, but such cases are comparatively rare. As a 
rule there can be no question as to which term is meant. 
Thus, for instance, we can say positively that in his rendering 
of the famous passage heading the Inquisitio Eliensis^ Dr. 
Stubbs (doubtless following Ellis) is in error both in his ' Select 

* See, for instance, i. 281 h 282 b^ &c. 



2o8 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

Charters ' and in his ' Constitutional History/ when he extends 
' quot car?, in dominio ' as ' quot camicatae/ So too, to take 
a different instance, Mr. Hunt, in his excellent little ' Norman 
Britain,' gives us caruca as the equivalent, not of the plough, 
but of the ' ploughland ' (p. 96). 

Another pitfall for the. older commentators was the con- 
fusion between the oxgang and the ploughgang (^.^. between 
the bovate and the carucate). Thus Ellis wrote that ' the 
Bavata, or oxgang, was originally as much as an ox-team 
could plough in a year ' (i. 156). I need hardly say that Mr. 
Seebohm's researches have made such an error impossible 
for the future.* 

Let us now look at the real ploughland, the terra ad unam 
carucam of Domesday. Mr. Eyton rightly observes that ' this, 
if not quite a definite expression, is intended in Domesday 
to denote an area of arable land nearly, if not always, con- 
stant' ' He proceeds to discuss what that area was, and 
arriving at the conclusion that ' the ordinary measure of the 
ploughgang was 120 acres,* adds: 'We cannot find a single 
instance subversive of such a doctrine, while, if we adopt any 
hypothesis differing by ten acres in either direction, a similar 
examination of instances will soon convince us that our basis 
is unsound.' * Now compare this with Mr. Seebohm's conclu- 
sion, arrived at so carefully and independently, that the area 
of the normal 'hide' (used as an areal measure) was 120 
acres, and with the leaning of the majority of commentators, 
especially old Agard himself, to that same figure, and I think 
you will admit that we have a strong presumption in favour 
of the correctness of this conclusion. 

But as a preliminary step, it is necessary to insist on a 

> So at least I thought when the above was written. Yet this error has been 
since solemnly brought forward by the Athenaum as a fact fatal to the views held 
by Canon Taylor, whom this illustration of the persistence of error must have 
amused no less than surprised. 

* Key to Domesday^ p. 23. " Ibid, p. 24. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 209 

postulate which would seem to be imperfectly grasped. This 
is the principle of the assessment ' norm/ There has been, 
and is, much difference of opinion on the subject of the 
Domesday plough-team (caruca) ; but whether in practice the 
number of oxen in that team differed or not, it is absolutely 
certain, in my opinion, that the ' caruca * 0/ Domesday stands 
for a team of eight oxen, and that the terra ad unam carucam 
was the ploughland for such team of eight oxen. For it is 
beyond dispute that such terra is invariably composed, in 
Domesday, of eight parts, each of them a terra ad unum 
bovem. Now for purposes of uniformity of Survey, in Domes- 
day, it was essential that the term * caruca * should have the 
same denotation throughout, and that denotation would 
obviously be based on the normal plough-team of the time, 
such normal plough-team, as Mr. Seebohm holds, being that 
team of eight oxen on which his theory is essentially based. 
The only point on which, here, I differ from Mr. Seebohm is 
on his belief that the 'caruca* in Domesday was applied 
indifferently to *the typical manorial plough-team of eight 
oxen 'and to 'the plough- team of the villeins,* which latter, 
he holds, can hardly have been composed of * more than four 
oxen.' * I, on the contrary, cannot admit that the * caruca * of 
Domesday can ever have varied. Surely this is conclusively 
proved by the monotonously regular Domesday formula : 
'Terra x carucis. Ibi ;r— a carucae. Et adhuc a possunt esse.' 
It will be seen that such a formula could only apply to the 
'caruca' as a fixed quantity ; and that, moreover, it involves 
the axiom of * one plough-team to every ploughland.' * 

In the same way, where land-measures are concerned, we 
must remember that, however they may have varied in prac- 
tice, it must have been necessary, for purposes of assessment, 

' Village Community in England^ pp. 85, 86. 
. ' At the same time, though this is indisputable, the point is one of some 
difficulty. 

VOL. I. P 



210 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

to assume some uniform scale, and in this way, it may be 
added, the assessment system would lead to a greater uni- 
formity in practice. Thus, taking the unit of assessment, 
whether the hide, the carucate, or the solin, it is obvious that 
its divisions, if recognised as geld-measures, must invariably 
have borne a fixed proportion to that unit With the hide, 
for instance, its subdivisions, the geld-virgate and the geld- 
acre, must have been fixed fractions of the hide, or their 
assessment would have been impossible. That is to say, the 
geld-hide must have contained a fixed number of geld-virgates 
and geld-acres. But, here again, that number would be 
determined by the normal number in the areal hide. Hence 
the importance of investigating the former as an authoritative 
clue to the latter. 

This doctrine that the hide (or carucate or solin) must 
have always contained, as a geld-measure, the same number 
of acres, is necessarily opposed to Canon Taylor's theory that 
the geldable carucate contained either 60 or 80 acres, accord- 
ing as the manor assessed was cultivated on the two-field or 
three-field system. Unfortunately, the question is further 
complicated by variations in the length of the rod or perch, 
and consequently in the size of the acre. Thus we have carii- 
cates of 60 acres which are specially mentioned to have been 
measured by the rod of 24 or 25 feet (described as 'our* royal 
rod by Richard I. and Henry III.) ; * so that these 60 custo- 
mary acres might amount to some 120 acres measured by the 
short rod. All which shows us how cautious we should be in 
laying down for universal application any hard and fast rule. 

Of all the various views that have been held on this subject, 
I need only allude to those of Kemble, because his great 
eminence as an authority on the Anglo-Saxon state renders it 
impossible to ignore them. * The value of a hide,' he wrote 

* Hale's Register of Worcester Priory , p. xlv; Ellis's Introduction ^ i. 151 ; 
Ninth Report Hist, MSS, App. I. p. 30, See also supra^ p. 205, note. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 211 

* is 40 Norman acres.' He further held that it was equal to 
30 Saxon acres, or rather to 30 of their * large acres/ each of 
which he divided into four quarentcfia or small acres, thus 
assigning 120 of these small or quarter acres to the hide. 
Further, he held that * as the Anglo-Saxon half-score was 
equivalent to the Norman dozen, 40 Norman acres would 
represent 33^ English acres,' which does not, he argues 
rather weakly, * differ very widely from the calculation given 
above ' (i.e. 30 acres).* This curious view, which he elaborated 
at length, was ably criticised by Mr. Pearson in an Appendix 
to his * England in the Middle Ages.' Mr. Freeman appears 
with much judgment to have refrained from discussing this 
knotty point, but our greatest authority of all — I mean of 
course Dr. Stubbs — has devoted a footnote to what, with 
justice, he describes as this * vexed question,' and in it, with 
great caution, discusses Kemble's view, urging that * although 
his argument obviates many difficulties, it opens the way for 
many more.' He further suggests as * possible that some of 
the inconsistencies in the use of these words may arise from 
their being used to express the whole share of one man in all 
the fields of his village. Thirty hides in a system of common 
cultivation would represent such an allotment in each of the 
cultivated areas.' * 

I have pointed out to Dr. Stubbs, that, when he thus wrote, 
what he meant to say was thirty acres, not thirty hides. But, 
in any case, this suggestion will not apply to Kemble, for he 
explained that in his reckoning of 30 acres he allowed 10 to 
each course. His error is, I think, rather to be traced to the 
fact that the hiwisce, or family holding, from which the word 

* hide * is said to be derived, was sometimes, it would seem, 
applied to the yardland of 30 acres, and sometimes to the 
full ploughland composed of four such yardlands.^ 

• S^axons in England (ed. Birch), i. lOi. * Const. Hist. i. 74, fwte. 

■ Compare Secbohm's Village Community ^ pp. 162, 395. 



212 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

I should mention, perhaps, that although in strictness the 
areal hide represented a ploughland, yet that ploughland 
connoted the enjoyment of certain appendicia — meadow, 
pasture, wood, and so forth — which might sometimes, I pre- 
sume, be associated with the ploughland under the name 
'hide/ 

Now, as to the number of acres contained in the areal 
hide, if we could prove that the subjective hide, the hide as 
a unit of geld assessment, contained 120 acres, we should 
obviously have the strongest presumption that the corre- 
sponding areal hide contained the same number. I have 
worked through the Inquisitio Geldi with this special object, 
but found to my disappointment that the odd acres which 
paid geld on that occasion did not pay at a uniform rate, 
some paying twice as much as others. This test, therefore, 
fails us, and all that we can say is that for the purpose of 
collecting the geld, the acre, if a geldable quantity, as it was, 
must have borne a fixed proportion to the unit of assessment 
with the hide ; and if that proportion was, as I think, one to 
a hundred and twenty, then at the normal geld-rate of two 
shillings on the hide, the holder of the virgate would have 
paid sixpence, and of the half-virgate threepence, while 
the typical cottier's holding of five acres would have paid 
one penny. I must explain, however, that we are only 
justified as yet in treating the geld as assessed on geld-hides 
and geld-virgates, not on the corresponding areal measure, 
for this involves a wide question on which I have made 
elaborate calculations, but on which I do not feel justified at 
present in speaking with the confidence I could wish. In 
any case you will see that the geld and the hide have a certain 
numerical relation, and I am, I must confess, a little surprised 
that Mr. Seebohm should connect the acreage of the hide 
with the comparatively late scutage, urging that ' in choosing 
the acreage of the standard hide and virgate, a number of 



\ 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 213 

acres was probably assumed corresponding with the monetary 
system, so that the number of pence in the scutum should 
correspond with the number of acres assessed to its payment ' 
(P- 39)' Surely this is a strange inversion of the chronological 
sequence of events. 

But I now come to a theory of Mr. Eyton's which, I con- 
fess, greatly puzzles me. If what I have termed the objective 
hide (and what he terms the ploughland) was reckoned, for 
purposes of calculation, at 1 20 acres, that is four virgates of 
30 acres each, then the subjective (or geld) hide would natu- 
rally be similarly reckoned as containing four virgates, or 120 
acres. That it did contain four virgates is happily quite 
certain. Mr. Eyton, however, asserts that it contained, not 
120, but 48 acres. The presumption is obviously so strong 
against so improbable a supposition, that it would need the 
clearest evidence to establish its correctness. To revert to an 
illustration I have already employed, it is like assuming that 
because the assessed value of a house differs from its real 
value, therefore every pound of the assessed value, though 
duly containing 20 shillings, would only contain in all 96 
pence. But Mr. Eyton had, unluckily, a provoking habit of 
occasionally omitting his evidence, and thus rendering it 
impossible to judge of the correctness of his induction. So 
here, he merely writes : ' In Dorset the gheld-hide was sub- 
divided into four virgates, and each virgate into 12 acres.'* 
All we can do, then, is carefully to examine the instance quoted 
by himself in illustration of his own contention. This is the 
manor of Mappowder, in Dorset, of which Domesday says 
that T.RE. 'geldabat pro m virgatis et dimidia et VII acris 
terre.' 'Here,' says Mr. E}^on, 'the gheld quantities are 
clumsily but intelligibly expressed. The geldability of the 
estate was that of one gheld-hide and one gheld-acre, or more 
concisely still, that of 49 gheld-acres.* * But if so, why does 

» Key U Domesday^ p. 14. ' ^^*<'- P- *6. 



214 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

not Domesday say so ? Wliy does it not say, after its wont, 
that the assessment is that of i hide and i acre ? Mr, Eyton 
gets over this difficulty by charging the Survey with clumsi- 
ness. Now it would be most unjust to that scholarly writer 
to quote, in his case, the old adage that ' bad workmen quarrel 
with their tools ' ; but, for my part, I confess I do not believe 
in finding fault with your record when you can't make it 
square with your theories. 

Let me give you an instance in point. We read, in Domes- 
day, of the borough of Stafford : 

Tempore regis R reddebat burgum de Stadford de omnibus 
consuetudinibus ix libras denariorum. Duae partes erant regis, 
tercia comitis. Modo habet rex W. de redditibus burgi vii libras inter 
suam partem et comitis. Medietatem partis proprise regis habet 
Robertus dono regis ut dicit (i. 246). 

On this Mr. Eyton thus comments in his work on the 
Staffordshire Domesday : 

Other evidence of the recent disorganisation of Staffordshire 
consists in what Domesday says about the county town and castle of 
Stafford 

In King Edward's time the burgage rents and customs had 
amounted to 9/. per annum, whereof 6/. went to the king, 3/. to the 
Earl (of Mercia). At the date of Domesday the gross income was 
7/. instead of 9/. The whole went to the king, who was both king 
and earl. The half of his share as king, which half I take to have 
been 2/. 6s. Sd., was now receivable by Robert (de Stafford) who 
alleged a crown grant thereof. 

The reason of this fall in the annual revenue of the burgh of 
Stafford evidently was, that out of 179 burgage-houses which com- 
posed the town, 51 lay waste (vasta) (p. 19 ; cf. p. 51). 

The interest of this conclusion, if correct, lies in the reduc- 
tion it implies in the firma due from Stafford. Ellis must 
have arrived at the same conclusion, for he tells us that * the 
rents from the customary payments of the town had dimi- 
nished/ * But if so, this was a remarkable exception, for, 

* Introduction^ ii. 487. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 215 

impoverished or not, all other boroughs had to pay more 
than, or at least as much as, they had paid under the Con- 
fessor. I contend, however, that it was not so. Later on in 
his work Mr. Eyton admits that 

as an item in Robert de Stafford's fief Domesday inserts the follow- 
ing : 

* In Burgo de Stafford habet Robertas lxx solidos de medietate 
partis Regis.' 

This I conclude to have been an erroneous statement ; at all 
events it is opposed to the statement above extracted from the Survey of 
the burgh of Stafford. It gives to Robert de Stafford half of the king's 
whole receipts, whether as king or earl, which whole receipts were 
7/. — ^that is, it gives the Baron 3/. 105. per annum. But it is clear 
from the previous statement that he was only entitled to 2/. 6s. Sd, 
(P- 95)- 

But I deny that the great Survey here is either erroneous or 
contradictory. Its meaning is that the render of Stafford 
had been raised from 9/. to 10/. icxr., that of this the king's 
two-thirds was 7/. and the earl's third 3/. lar., and that the 
king having granted to Robert de Stafford half of his own 
share, namely of the 7/. (that is, 3/. lOJ., precisely as Domes- 
day states), there remained to the king ' inter suam partem et 
comitis [partem] ' just 7/., which is the sum given in the 
Survey. There is, therefore, no discrepancy whatever ; only 
a misunderstanding on Mr. Eyton's part. And this was due 
to the peculiarity of the case in the king giving Robert, not 
the earl's third, but (which came to the same thing) a half of 
his own two-thirds. His doing so is ingeniously, and no 
doubt rightly, thus explained by Mr. Eyton : 

In an arithmetical point of view it was immaterial whether the 
king made over half his own share of this revenue, or the whole of 
the earl's share : but William, I opine, was careful to give to Robert 
de Stafford nothing that savoured of earldom (p. 19, note). 

But to return : I object, as I have said, to theories being 
defended by charging the Survey with clumsiness or error 



2i6 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

where its evidence is against them. In the passage quoted 
from the Dorset Domesday, the Survey is only clumsy if 
Mr. Eyton's theory is right If, on the contrary, as I am in- 
clined to hold, the geld virgate was of thirty acres, then three 
virgates and a half plus seven acres would be the natural 
way of expressing a hundred and twelve acres. So with 
Essex. There we have such a case as this. Alresford was 
held ' pro II hidis et pro L acris terre* On my hypothesis this 
means for two hides and fifty acres, that is for two hides and 
five-tenths. But on Mr. Eyton's, it would be a 'clumsy' 
expression for three hides and two acres. Again, on the fief 
of Randulf Peverel, we find manors occurring which *defend- 
unt se ' for 9 hides + 82 acres, for two hides and a half + 30 
acres (ii. 72 a), for half a hide and 30 acres, for half a hide and 
24 acres (ii. 75 a) — which last, according to Mr. Eyton, would - 
mean exactly one hide. All these appear to me to be 
entirely at variance with his theory. I had hoped, as I said, 
that the geld-rolls of 1084 might decide the point conclu- 
sively one way or the other, but a laborious search has com- 
pelled me to believe that the odd acres contributed at so 
uncertain a rate as to leave their relation to the virgate and 
the hide in as much uncertainty as ever. 

I must not leave this point without alluding to the 
peculiar use, in Cornwall, of the acre as a unit of geld- 
measurement. Mr. Eyton appeals to this usage when enun- 
ciating the view discussed above ; * but when we find a manor, 
as in these cases, assessed in terms of the acre, nay when we 
find manors assessed not merely at one acre, but actually at 
half an acre, you will, I think, agree with me that there must 
be something peculiar in these 'acres.' For even on Mr. 
Eyton's own hypothesis, an assessed value of half an acre 
would not represent more than a ninety-sixth of a hide, 
which, at the normal geld-rate of 2j., would involve the 

* Key to Donusday^ p. 16. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 217 

liability of this manor to a total payment for a year's geld of 
exactly one farthing. Surely we have here a reductio ad 
absurdum. It should, perhaps, be added that in these cases 
we have * ager ' occasionally instead of * acre.' 

If I am right in rejecting this hypothesis on the geld- 
acre, it follows that Mr. Eyton's assumption that in Lincoln- 
shire it equalled five statute acres, involved three errors. 
First, like his similar statement in Dorset, it rests on his fatal 
system of average, which is absolutely misleading for indi- 
vidual cases. Secondly, it does not, for Lincolnshire even, 
rest on an average, for in two of the three divisions of the 
county the averages were widely different from this. Thirdly, 
it is based on the erroneous estimate of twelve acres to the 
geld-virgate. 

Let us now take a test case and see how the estimate of 
1 20 acres for the ploughland (or * terra ad unam carucam ') 
works out in practice. I select the now familiar name of 
Kensington, because that manor happens to afford a pecu- 
liarly clear and simple case. The Domesday entry is as 
follows : 

Albericus de uer tenet de episcopo Constantiensi Chenesit[am]. 
Pro X hidis se defendit. Terra est x carucis. Ibi in dominio 
sunt iiii carucae et villani habent v carucas et vi potest fieri.* 

In totis valentiis valet x libras. . . . T.R.E. x libras (i. 130 b^ 2). 

Here, as Mr. Eyton would say, everything is normal. 
Assessment, ten hides ; extent, ten ploughlands ; value, ten 
pounds. Four ploughlands are in demesne, six in villen- 
age. Now reckoning the ploughland at 120 acres, this would 
give us, for the Domesday manor, 1,200 acres of arable, of 
which 480 in demesne and 720 in villenage. Passing from 
1086 to 1264, we find that, in the latter year, on the death of 

< It is clear from an examination of the manors on this page that the above 
'VI' ought to be * VI ta'\i.e. sexta) *a sixth.' (Compare Inquisitio Etiensis^ 
p. 507 [I J.) 



2i8 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

Hugh de Ver (Earl of Oxford) to whom the manor had 
descended from Aubrey de Ver, an Inq, p,m, was taken, and 
the extent of the manor ascertained to be (i) In demesne, 
570 acres of arable of 4//. an acre ; (2) In villenage, 21 virgates, 
at the rent of 59/. 4^^. Now 2 1 virgates of 30 acres of arable 
each (on the hypothesis of 120 to the ploughland) would 
amount to 630 acres, which with the above 570 acres in 
demesne, would give us exactly the 1,200 acres of arable that 
we deduced from the Domesday entry. The only change 
that will have taken place in those 178 years is the taking of 
three virgates (90 acres) out of villenage into demesne. 

It is, of course, always dangerous to argue from a single 
case, but the above figures are certainly remarkable. They 
do not, however, affect or exclude the hypothesis that the 
sixty acres of fallow (under the three-field system) were never 
reckoned in the * ploughland.' 

Turning now to a different subject, I am particularly 
anxious to call your attention to the question of the acre as 
applied to meadow-land. When stud)ang the Domesday 
Survey of Colchester, I noted in the ' Antiquary ' that there 
was one point which I was utterly unable to explain. It was 
this. At Colchester, as in most similar localities, we find a 
King's Meadow, so-called, observe, not because the king 
owned it, but because he possessed in it a large proportion of 
the * doles.' The name remained, but its meaning was for- 
gotten. Now in this meadow were ten 'acres,' so-called, 
which I had identified with the ten acres of meadow entered 
as the king's in Domesday, which were always attached to 
the king's castle, and which have passed with that castle to my 
family. I found them described in our deeds as ' the ten acres 
in King's Meadow,' but on examining them I found that as a 
matter of fact they lay in three strips, the six-acre, the three- 
acre, and the acre, the whole only amounting to 7a. 2r. 36p., 
and the average for the acre in each strip varying from 75 to 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 219 

•80, that is from 3 to 3^ roods. I could get no further light 
on this, till on reading Mr. Palmer's admirable treatise on 
'Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of North Wales/ I 
found that his researches led him to the conclusion that ' the 
normal doles of the old common meadows ' in his district are 
represented by an area of * a little over three statute roods.' 
The resemblance was curiously complete. Mr. Palmer pro- 
ceeds to note that in common parlance a meadow is still 
spoken of both there and in Cheshire as containing so many 
* days' math,' and inclines to the conclusion that these normal 
doles were really * days* maths ' (a statement for which there 
is record evidence), and represented each the amount that a 
man could mow in a day. Now let us turn from Mr. Palmer 
to Palgrave. That writer tells us of East Friesland, that * the 
district known by the name of the Theel-land, contains about 
2,000 day-maths, a measure which was anciently known in 
this country, being still retained in the County Palatine of 
Chester.' » 

We may fairly, then, assume that these Domesday acres 
in the King's Mead at Colchester were not really acres at all 
but days' maths, and if so there, elsewhere also, as for instance 
at Canterbury, where the eight Domesday acres of meadow 
are said, I believe, by Larking to have been situate in the 
King's Mead. This would at once explain the passage in 
the Battle Abbey Register, 'triginta acras prati ad men- 
suram Normanniae dimensas,' implying that the English 
meadow acre represented a different acre, in fact the * day's 
math.' Further, Mr. Palmer has well explained that seeming 
doles of a statute acre were the result of a process by which 
all the meadow was in some cases thrown together and doled 
out afresh on the real acre system. We have traces, I think, 
of some such process in a record of about the beginning of 
the thirteenth century, contained in Madox's * Formularium ' 

* English Commonwealth ^ i. 77. 



220 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

(p. 250), which is valuable for its evidence on the village 
community, and which speaks of * octo perticatas prati . . . 
quamlibet percatam de sedecim pedibus/ The special men- 
tion of the length of the perch would seem to point to a fresh 
division on a new system of measurement. 

The survival of so archaic a measurement as the * day- 
math ' at the date of the Domesday Survey will not seem 
strange when we learn that in Essex (at Runwell) we find at 
least ar. late as the middle of the thirteenth century mention 
of * daywcrkes * of land, that I have myself examined original 
charters relating to manors in the same county, and dealing 
with ' opera diurna vocata daywerkes,* and that in Warwick- 
shire, startling though the fact may seem, we actually find 
mention of * acres or dayes workes of arrable lande * as late 
as the reign of Charles II. 

This may lead us to glance for a moment at the witness 
of Domesday to * the open field.* The first point to which I 
would call attention is the occasional use in the Survey of 
the * acre ' not as an areal, but as a lineal measure. Students 
of our early land system will, of course, understand at once 
that such a usage is the direct consequence of the typical 
* acre-strip ' that characterised tlie open field Just as the 
base of the areal * rood * was the lineal * rood ' or ' rod,' so the 
base of the areal acre (composed of four such rood-strips 
lying side by side) was the lineal acre, i.e, four rods. But 
the measure which we find in Domesday in conjunction with 
the lineal acre is the ' quarentena.' Now the quarentena is 
the * furlong,' that is, the side of the areal acre, just as the 
lineal ' acre ' is its base. Thus the use of these two measures 
brings before us with vivid force the sight of those acre-strips 
which must have met on every side the eyes of the Domesday 
Commissioners. As Mr. Eyton observes in his Dorset 
Domesday (pp. 25-28), these two measures were used for 
estimating woodland and pasture. But it may be pointed 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 221 

out that such phrases as ' Silva una quarentina et VIII acrae 
lata' (79 b^ i) cannot be taken as of rigid precision, although 
Mr. Eyton does so. For it is obvious that the woodland was 
not distributed over the country in a series of rectangular 
blocks. My own impression is that the legati used the divi- 
sions of the open field as a kind of rough-and-ready reckoner 
with which to estimate by eye the dimensions of the adjacent 
woodland. 

It is, indeed, said that the Domesday Survey nowhere 
alludes to the open field ; yet from behind the veil of the 
great Record there peep, irrepressible, ever and anon the 
familiar features of the village community. We have clear 
glimpses, under their actual names, of its three essential land 
divisions — the campi, or great open fields,* the citltura or shots, 
into which those fields were subdivided,* and even the acre- 
strips themselves, the acre-stups which had to be ploughed 
and the acre-strips which had to be sown.' It might even be 
urged, though I do not wish to press the point unduly, that 
the phrase, * Ibi i hida . . . jacet inter terram regis particit- 
latim ' (i. 1 56 b) points, if * particulatim * should be rendered 
'piecemeal,* to the scattering of this * hide * over the open fields. 

* * In campis Lincoliae extra civitatem * (i. 336). Compare the * campi ' 
(or open fields) of Nottingham mentioned throughout the Records of the Borough 
of Nottingham, also the * Boroughfields ' at Colchester &c. &c. 

* • Una cultura terrae * (i 34, 375 b\ On this term, see a remarkable early 
charter (1 150-1159)1 in the Burton Cartulary (p. 37), where we find this expression : 
'II culturas terne una de vi Uutdis et aliam de vii.' I note this as a most 
interesting case of the early occurrence of our term ' lands ' (in a Latinised form), 
of which term Mr. Atkinson (in his * Notes on Common Field Names ') writes ; 
*■ the universal term for the divisions of the field created by regular ploughing is 
lands'* {Antiquary^ xiv. 117). The same writer speaks of ^cultura or culture'' 
being a name of continual occurrence in old deeds of a group of such acres {Ibid. 
p. 74). I merely quote these passages as confirming my statements. 

• 'XLI acras de aratnra* (ii. 2 ^) ; • vii acras seminatas* (i. 267 b) ; * unam 
acram seminatam ' (ii. 7S b); * villani arant et seminant de proprio semine quater 
XX acras frumenti et totidem ad avenas preter ix acras . . . villani arabant cxi. 
acras terrae domini et seminabant de proprio semine frumenti * (i. 179 b). See 
also for villein services :—* Hi Radchenistri arabant et hcriciabant ad curiam 
domini ' (i. 163). 



222 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

Lastly, we have the three typical services of the com- 
munity which dwelt within this shell (to adapt Mr. Seebohm's 
simile), the opus or week-work,^ the precaria or bene-work,* 
and the gablum or gafol,' all of them distinctly entered. 

We are reminded also that even dwellers in towns were 
connected with the open-field system, its dues and its villein 
services. At Nottingham the burgesses had paid for their 
land partly in gafol and partly in labour ; * at Hereford the 
owner of every burgage had yearly to reap the king's crops 
and make the king's hay ; * at Steyning he had to perform 
all the villein services;® and at Colchester almost every 
burgess held a strip, large or small, in the fields that lay 
about the walls. 

In dealing with the evidence of Domesday on the village 
community in England, Mr. Seebohm commits himself to one 
statement from which I must reluctantly differ. Urging that 
it is * clear ' from the witness of Domesday * that at the date 
of the Survey the holdings of the villein were generally hides, 
half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates,' and that the virgate or 
yard-land was the normal holding (p. 94), he writes, of * the 
Fen country ' — 

the holdings in this district seem to have been peculiar. Instead 
of being each of a virgate, or each of a half- virgate, they are each 
of so many acres, as was found to be the case in some districts of 
Cambridgeshire in the Hundred Rolls. The Fen district seems to 
have had its own local peculiarities, both in the nth and in the 



' * XII bordarii operantes una die ebdomade ' (i. i86). 

* 'Excepto rustico opere sicut deprecari poterat a preposito' (i. 172 ^). 
' Homines operantur opera regis quae prepositus jusserit ' (i. 219). 

■ * Cum gablo rusticorum ' (i. 12 b), 

* * Hec terra . . . de censu terre et operibus burgensium reddit LXXV solidos 
et VII denarios ' (i. 280}. 

* * Unaquaeque Integra masura . . . tribus diebus in Augusto secabat ad Maur- 
dine et una die ad fenum congregandum erat ubi vicecomes volebat * (i. 179). 

' *In burgo fuerunt cxviii masurse . . Ad curiam operabantur sicul villani 
T.R.E.'(i. 17). 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 223 

14th centuries, just as Kent also had. But here was no exception 
to the rule that the villani were classed in grades, each grade with 
equal holdings (Id.). 

I contend that, on the contrary, we have here to do with 

a very remarkable exception to that * rule * which Mr. Seebohm 

has so ably set forth. I have gone carefully through the 

manors in question, as surveyed in the Inquisitio Eliensi^, 

and I think the following results will be found tolerably 

accurate : 

40 villeins, holding 5 acres. 



I 


»> 


II 


6 „ 


17 


» 




7 .. 


32 


»i 




7i » 


32 


>i 




8 „ 


13 


>9 




9 .. 


61 


»» 




10 „ 


II 


9> 




" ,, 


37 


9f 




" » 


12 


II 




15 .. 



It will be seen how startling is the difference between 
such a system as this and Mr. Seebohm*s four 'grades' of 
villeins, holding respectively 15, 30, 60, and 120 acres (taking 
his estimate of the hide and virgate). But as the hide and 
virgate are found in these manors as measures, though not as 
holdings, the extremely interesting question is raised, as it 
seems to me, whether this system of ' small holdings ' may 
not have been superimposed on the older ' virgate ' system. 
And this further suggests the question whether, if the 'virgate' 
under the normal system was the typical villein holding, the 
three other grades of holding represent a later development 
of the system by the division or aggregation of the original 
virgates ? 

Before finally taking leave of the subject of 'measures of 
land in Domesday,' it should be noted that on the title-page 
of his ' Key to Domesday ' Mr. Eyton places prominently 



224 NOTES ON DOMESDAY MEASURES OF LAND 

* its exactitude of mensuration/ It might almost be described 
as having been a passion with him to account for every acre 
in each county on which he wrote. At first sight, no doubt, 
his results are wonderful. Every item is exactly accounted 
for. Yet, alas ! this perfect system will not bear the strain of 
test. When Mr. Eyton was sure of the total for which he 
had to account, he was generally able to account for it. But 
sometimes the total turned out to be wrong after he had 
accounted for it quite satisfactorily under the impression 
that it was right. And this, I fear, is fatal. Take for in- 
stance the case of Drayton in his analysis of the Staffordshire 
Survey. Mr. Eyton considered that the area for which he 
had here to account was 3,315 acres. He reckoned up its 
two constituent manors, the king's and Thurstan's, which con- 
tained between them 9 ploughlands — that is according to 
what he terms his * oft-repeated theory,' 1,080 acres -f* 20 
acres of meadow, and (as I,' he adds, * compute the measure- 
ments) 1,440 acres of wood ' (p. 63). You can make nothing 
of this but 2,540 acres. Yet Mr. Eyton must have reckoned 
it, by an error of over 1,100 acres, at 3,653 acres, for he tells 
us that * the Domesday measures ' of these two manors * imply 
338 acres more' than the 3,315 that he had to account for. 
This supposed excess he at once disposes of by informing us 
that 'these 338 acres were in Cantwell' (p. 64). But, alas! 
in his errata he frankly confesses that the existence of two 
manors at Drayton was on his part * a delusion,' as one of the 
two had been included in error, and that his calculations in 
Drayton were consequently * mostly inept ! ' Again, to take 
another instance, it has been ably suggested by General 
Wrottesly (introduction to the 'Burton Chartulary,' p. 3), 
that the supposed suppression of Burton Abbey's estate in 
Burton itself was due to an error in the compilation of 
Domesday, the words 'in ipsa villa' introducing the said estate 
being represented in the Survey as referring to Stafford. 



NOTES ON DOMESDAY^ MEASURES OF LAND 225 

This ingenious hypothesis appears to carry conviction with it. 
Thus the estate in Stafford assigned by Domesday to the 
Abbey would simply represent the Burton estate, supposed 
by Mr. Eyton to have been suppressed. When, therefore, he 
estimated the alleged estate in Stafford at 240+ 16 -+-360, i.e. 
5i6 acres (p. 93), he was in reality, though he knew it not, 
estimating the supposedly suppressed estate, which estate he 
had separately estimated at 6,580 acres ' (or, contradictorily, 
in another place, at * some 5,370 ').* That is to say, the area 
of one and the same estate was unconsciously proved by him 
in one place to be ten times as much as he proved it in the 
other. 

After such striking examples as these of the way in 
which, if not the greatest, at least the most ardent of Domes- 
day scholars ' hopelessly wrecked his little bark ' (to quote 
from the opening page of this paper) on 'the rock' of 
measures of land, it should be hardly necessary to warn the 
student that undue precipitancy or rash confidence will in- 
evitably lead him to the same fate. 



Postscript. — Since the above paper was in type I have found evidence 
proving that the Domesday hide (i.e. the unit of assessment) contained 120 acres 
as contended by me in the text. 

» P. 10. « P. 14. 



VOL. I, 



Errata et Addenda, 

Page 377, No. 70, instead of Roman Stadion read Stadion of 720 Roman feet 
square, and add The eighteenth part of this Stadion is the Roman 
jugerum, and the amount of the Sussex short acre of 100 statute poles. 

Page 383, Russia, itutead of 5 Roman Stadia read 5 Stadia of 720 Roman feet. 



® QteS (pieSS of i^t (BefbaBf^ (^tdi 
of Oiaeeeamenf of ©omeebag^ 

EMBRACING THE DIVISIONS OF THE LIBRA OR POUND OF 
SILVER AND THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES OF UN- 
COINED METAL, FLOUR, CLOTH, &c., AS MADE BY THE 
ANGLI, MERCIANS, DANES, NORMANS, AND CELTS, AND 
THEIR CONNECTION WITH THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING 
OF THE WORDS «HIDA,' 'CARUCATA,' «VIRGATA,* *VIL- 
LANUS,' 'ANGLICUS NUMERUS,' &c. 

By O. C. pell, M,A., Barrister-at-Law. 



It has been necessary in writing this paper to refer to certain 
MSS. ; these MSS. are cited by me under letters which are 
placed against the description of such MSS. as follows : — 

D. Bk. Domesday Booky &c., as printed by authority of 
Parliament, in four vols. 

E. L. h Liber Eliensis of the year 1221, being Tiberius 
B. il in the Cottonian MSS. 

L.E. Another Liber Eliensis of the year 1277, being 
Claudius C. xi. in the Cottonian MSS., of which another copy 
is in Caius College Library, though mutilated in some 
places. 

H. R. The Hundred Rolls. Printed in two vols. 

D. P. The Domesday of St. Paul, edited by the late 
Archdeacon Hale for the Camden Society. 

y 2 



228 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

R.C. The Cartulary of Ramsey Abbey ^ at the Record 
Office, now in course of publication in the Rolls series, but of 
which only the first two volumes are as yet printed. 

Exon. D. The Exon Domesday ^ printed in 1 8x6 by order 
of Parliament, and containing the original returns of the 
Domesday Commissioners, from which portions of Domesday 
Book itself for the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, 
Somerset, and Wiltshire were compiled. 

E. M. A MS. (in the possession of the Dean and Chapter 
of Ely) of the reign of Ed. II. called Extenta Manerii, but 
relating to seven Manors only. 

P. G. The Chariulary of St. Peter' Sy Gloucester ^ in the 
Rolls Series. 

B. B. Boldon Book. 

W. P. Registrum Prioratus Beatce Marice Wigornensis 
(Camden Society's Publication). 

Some of these MSS. give the size of the virgate of the 
manor, in those manors to which they relate, and some of 
them give in addition the area of the lord's demesne farm in 
each manor, and the number of ploughs at work on such 
demesne. 

It is obvious, therefore, that these MSS., written as they 
are ' on the same lines ' as D. Bk. (but going minutely into 
detail), give the clue to solve many doubtful points as to the 
meaning of such words as hida^ carucata^ terra ad carucam^ 
and virgata, and they are somewhat of a key to the survey of 
1086. 

For the sake of easy reference I have arranged the 
contents of this paper under the following heads : — 

I. The Libra or pound of silver; divisions of in account 

into shillings and pence, &c. 
II. The divisions of the land. Poles or virgae, acrae, bovatae, 
and virgatae, &c. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 229 

III. The Areal *Hida,' 'Terra ad carucam' or 'carucata* 

of the lords and their men. 

IV. The Unit of Assessment 

V. The Geldable * Hida' or * Carucata.' 
VI. The Anglicus Numerus, &c. 
VII. • Villanus/ * Servus.' 

I. THE LIBRA OR POUND OF SILVER. 
Division of in account into Shillings and Pence, 

It has sometimes been said, and at first sight it would ap- 
pear to have been said with truth, that discussions as to the 
meaning of the words ' hida/ ' terra ad carucam/ ' carucatae/ 
and such like found in Domesday are vain and useless, in 
that they deal with matters of dry detail, and lead to no end 
worthy of the labour bestowed upon them. 

I think otherwise, and venture to say that these very 
particulars (when it is perceived what they really imply) are 
some of the most interesting to be found in the Great Survey, 
and contain matter of the most importance to the historian 
dealing with Anglo-Saxon times, for in them is wrapped up 
the key to much that has hitherto been only matter of specu- 
lation, and also to the knowledge of the race and the numbers, 
actual condition, and monetary position of the people in- 
habiting these islands in those times. 

In order to support the statement thus made by me, I 
must first of all consider the divisions of the libra or pound 
weight of silver and gold in ancient times. The libra (not 
the Tower or moneyers' pound) was then divided (in matters 
of account) in different ways. Among the Romans, in 
matters of account, it was divided into 72 shillings nominally, 
each of 96 grains, such grains or units being about one-sixth 
less than our Troy grains. This division for purposes of 
accounts, notwithstanding the depreciation of the actual coins 



230 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELD ABLE UNIT OF 

themselves, appears to have been in practice at the time of 
the Theodosian and Justinian Codes; for instance, *Si quis 
solidos appendere voluit auri cocti, VI solidos quatemorum 
scriptulorum nostris vultibus figuratos appendat pro singulis 
unciis,' Cod. Theod. liber xii. tit 7, p. 563 ; and again, 
' Quotiescunque certa solidorum summa pro tituli quantitate 
debetur et auri massa transmittitur in LXXII solidos libra 
feratur,' Cod. Justin, ix. tit. 7, p. 5. 

The Anglo-Saxons also in matters of account, before the 
advent of the Danes and the treaty between Alfred and 
Guthrum (referred to below), appear to have divided their 
pound into scillings of 4 peninga, ^dich penig being 20 grains 
Troy, or 26f wheat grains, 32 of which equalled 24 grains 
Troy. The actual existence of this wheat grain is most mate- 
rial as bearing on the land measures, the subject of this 
inquiry, and for the understanding of certain portions of 
Domesday Book. That the Anglo-Saxons had a shilling of 
4^/. appears from a passage in Ina's laws, to be found at 
p. 140, vol. i. of Thorpe's ' Ancient Laws and Institutes of 
England,* where an ox's tail is put at i scilling, which in 
another version of the same date and of the same law is said 
to be 4 peninga. So, too, in the laws of the Conqueror, sec- 
tion I, xi. page 472 of the same volume of Thorpe, *De 
membrorum mutilacione.' ' Del dei apres le poucer XV sol 
de sol Engleis que est apele quaer denier.' 

But though the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons appear to 
have divided the libra in the way that I have mentioned, yet 
at the very time that it was so divided there was another 
division of the libra in practice in Europe, and perhaps in 
England, which was afterwards used by the Normans and 
Danes, which existed on the continent long before their 
advent in these islands, and which coincides with our division 
of the pound and with Troy weight, being the division which 
gives 20 solidi to the libra, 12 pence of 24 grains Troy (or 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 231 

32 wheat grains) to the soUdus, and, therefore, 240 pence to 
the j>ound. This system was that of Charlemagne, and the 
proportions were those of the lira of Italy, the libra of Spain, 
and the livre of France. 

This division of the pound is to be found at a very early 
time in the beginning of the seventh century, and possibly 
considerably before that time. At any rate, it is mentioned 
in the * Leges Alamannicae,' cap. vi. § 3 : — ' Saiga autem est 
quarta pars tremissis — hoc est denarius unus : duo saiga duo 
denarii dicuntur. Tremissis est tertia pars solidi et sunt 
denarii quatuor.' See also 'Leges Ripuarix,' c. xix. § i. 
But further, there is distinct evidence that this division was in 
force in the middle of the eighth century in England. It ap- 
pears in the ' Historia Eliensis ' (Gale's ' Scriptores,' xv. p. 472) 
that Britnoth purchased at that time certain land at Cypcn- 
ham, in Cambridgeshire, and agreed 'quod Abbas pro 
singulis hidis C solidos daret.' When the payment was to be 
made, the MS. goes on to say, ' venit uxor Alfuodi xv libras 
acceptura, et abbati ill integras hydas traditura.' This 
would make the solidus one of 12 pence. Moreover, a 
century earlier, in the treaty of peace between Alfred and 
Guthnim (Thorpe's 'Ancient Laws and Institutes,' vol. ii. 
p. 481), we find this entry : — ' Twi hindi hominis wera est twa- 
hund, scilicet ducenti sol. ex V scl. denariis, qui faciunt 
nil lib. et XL d.,' thus disclosing a shilling of five pence and 
pointing to the conclusion that a division of the libra into 
240 denarii, as well as into one of 288 pence, had at the time, 
and perhaps for the purposes of that treaty, been adopted 
by the Wessex king ; the mere statement of the number of 
denarii in a scilling implying the co-existence of solidi of a 
different denomination. 

To carry on this portion of the inquiry one step further in 
anticipation of what will be more fully shown, it has to be 
mentioned that expressions such as 'uncia agri,' 'solidata 



232 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

terrae/ and ' Hbrata terrae ' are often to be met with in old 
MSS. Thus, in vol. ii. of 'H. R./ page 725, under the 
heading * De eis qui debent ere Milites/ we read : ' Dicunt 
juratores quod Robertus filius Nigelli habet terram suam 
valoris XX libr. argenti et amplius * (meaning the fee simple 
value) ; and, in the next entry, ' Dicunt et jurant quod 
Johannis filius Rogeri Gernon habet XX libras terrae et non 
est miles/ Now, supposing that if at any time in England 
land had to be distributed or redistributed and taxed by 
librae argenti and acres measured by poles or vii^ae corre- 
sponding to the measures of money or money's worth re- 
served on such distribution — i,e. by the pence contained in a 
pound of silver or by the measures of food or cloth, &c., for 
which such pence were the equivalent; and supposing, 
further, that once there were in England different modes of 
division of the libra at the same time — as there certainly 
were at the time of Edgar, and very likely at a much 
earlier time — then it is plain that id. per acre of acres in 
a two-course shift would give 288 acres to the pound, and 
2d, per acre would give 144 acres to the pound with those 
who divided the libra into 288 pence, whilst id. per acre 
would give 240 acres in the one case, and 2d. per acre 
would give 120 acres in the other case, to the pound with 
those who divided the libra into 240 pence. Now, the 
Normans used this Frank division of the pound which 
gives 240 pence to the libra, and on examination I think 
it is pretty fairly sure that this last-mentioned area of 120 
acres (taxed at 2d. per acre, being the sown portion of a 
plot of 240 acres in a two-course shift) was the Norman 
unit of assessment all over England, and is recorded under 
some one or other of the expressions * hida,* * carucata,' ' terra 
est car/ and ' car. possunt ere,' as shown further on. It is 
necessary to say here also in anticipation that it is more 
than likely that D. Bk. directly mentions the geldable land 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 233 

only, and that linked to it may be fallow land lying <in 
cominuni ' untaxed and unnoticed (as will also appear further 
on), so that the 120 acres might represent 240 acres in a two- 
course shift, and 180 in a three-course. Continuing on with 
the divisions of the pound : it appears that there was 
another division of a weight or mark of gold, which I have 
ventured to call pre-Anglo-Saxon, and British (because used 
by that people), but which I shall allude to in this paper as 
Mercian, as for a long period it was the basis of the moneys of 
account of the Kingdom of Mercia and lingered on till after 
the time of D. Bk. in regard to customary payments ; this 
weight or mark (not to be confounded with the old libra 
mercatoria of 1 5 ounces of 7,680 Troy grains) was perhaps 
Gothic or Scandinavian, but was certainly founded on a 
wheat grain, 32 of which equalled 24 Troy grains, being 
as eight to six, or three-fourths the weight of the Troy 
grain. Of the existence of this grain we are made aware by 
referring to Thos. Rudborn in ' Hist Maj. Winton. Anglia 
Sacra,' vol. i. p. 257, who says it was declared by W. Conq. 
(1083) that a penny sterling was to weigh 32 wheat grains, 
and also to the declaratory statute 3 Ed. 51, which enacts 
* that an English penny called a Sterling round and without 
dipping shall weigh thirty-two wheat-ears from the midst 
of the ear,* and declares that * twenty pence shall make one 
ounce, and twelve ounces one pound/ It will appear, therefore, 
that therewere 7,680 of these wheat grains (= 5,760 Troy grains) 
in the Norman and Edward's pound. If we divide the 7,680 
grains by 30, we have a pound containing 256 pence instead 
of the 240 of the Norman or 288 of the Saxon pound ; but all 
three pounds, if of the same weight, containing in actual weight 
7,680 wheat grains. The men of Berkholt (Suffolk), in the 
Placita coram Rege 37 Henr. III. Rot. 4, plead 2^ prescriptive 
right to pay to the Lord of the Manor the customary fee of 
two ounces, or 'oras,' of the value of 32 pence (each of 30 



234 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

grains). So also in Camden's 'Britan. in Belgis,' p. 186, 
citing an authority from the register of Burton Abbey, this 
ora of 16 pence is disclosed, each penny being 30 wheat 
grains = 22J Troy grains. Wherever a payment is recorded 
as having to be made in * 2 Orae denariorum/ it is invariably 
stated as to be made *ex veteri consuetudine/ and, as in 
D. Bk. it is so recorded (as we shall see), it is plain how very 
old, even at that day, such a money must have been, and 
that it must have existed long before the advent of the Danes. 

There is to be noticed this analogy between the Anglo- 
Saxon and Mercian mark, viz. that the number of grains 
in the Anglo-Saxon penny and Mercian penny is in deci- 
mals, and the Norman penny in duodecimals ; but, on the 
other hand, this is compensated in the former by a division 
into shillings of duodecimal or sexdecimal figures. 

This old (and possibly British) weight of 7,680 grains, 
divided into 256 pence, was further divided into 16 orae of 
16 penny-weights. And in this case the ounce, or ora, would 
equal that referred to in the * Laws of King Ethelred ' (IV. De 
Institutis Lundoniae, sec. ix.), Thorpe, vol. i. p. 303, thus : 
'Omne pondus sit marcatum ad pondus quo pecunia mea 
recipitur, et eorum singulum signetur ita quod XV ore libram 
faciant,' 15 ounces thus equalling 16 ounces of Ethelred, the 
latter containing 480 Mercian wheat grains in the ounce 
instead of 512 : the necessity for thus marking the pound 
would not have arisen (it is evident) if the Mercian mark had 
been originally 1 5 ounces. As Ethelred calls this weight a 
* libra,' I shall refer to it indifferently either as a pound or a 
mark. 

Before I proceed to examine more in detail the component 
parts of these moneys of account, to which as yet I have only 
generally alluded, it is perhaps necessary to say that in very 
early times, no doubt, the render that was owing from a man 
was not reserved in actual coined money ; it might have been, 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 235 

and no doubt was, reserved in food, measures of flour, cloth, 
cattle, uncoined metal, or even, perhaps, slaves ; but these 
had recognised equivalents in money. Thus the old laws of 
the Saxons on the Continent give the equivalents of what 
was originally reserved in cattle, grain, or honey, stating the 
number or amount of each that was supposed to equal a 
solidus. In very old times an ox was treated as a nomisma ; 
so too in Norway the render being reserved in ells of cloth, 
the equivalent of six of such ells was reckoned as an ore of 
* wadmal,' and the ell subsequently coined as a penny. So, 
too (in the Venedotian Code, Book ii. c. xxvi.), if the render of 
a free maenol (occupied by several homesteads or tyddens) 
consisting of a horse-load of flour, the carcase of a cow, a vat 
of mead, seven thraves of oats, a three-year-old swine, a salted 
flitch, and a vessel of butter, could not be obtained, it was 
commuted thus, ' 6 score pence for bread, 3 score for liquor, 
and 3 score for enllyn' (i.e. what was eaten with bread). 
There is every reason to suppose that this right of commu- 
tation had existed for some time, each score of pence repre- 
senting in weight one ounce in a pound of 12 ounces to the 
pound of silver, being the pound of pence in use at the time 
when the copy of the Code that I am quoting from was made. 
Proceeding now to a detailed account of these pounds, I will, 
beginning with the grain, go on to the denarius, the ounce or 
ore, and finally the pound itself. 

The Grain. 

It will be gathered from what has gone before that there 
were two kinds of grains in use as measures of weight in 
England. First, the Troy grain, 5,400 of which went to the 
Old Tower or moneyers' pound, which appears to have been 
the Saxon pound of coined money as distinguished from the 
money of account Secondly, the wheat grain, 4 of which 
equalled 3 grains Troy ; 32 therefore counterbalanced the 24 



236 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

Troy grains in a Norman pennyweight, and 640 equalled the 
480 Troy in an ounce ; 7,680 wheat grains in a Mercian mark 
or pound of 16 orae or solidi of 16 pennyweights, therefore 
answer to 5,760 Troy of a pound of 12 ounces of 20 penny- 
weights to the pound, and 9,600 to 7,200 Troy of a pound 
of 15 ounces of 20 pennyweights; the 9,600 wheat grains 
being the contents of a pound of 1 5 ounces of 20 pennyweights 
of 32 wheat grains, or of a pound of 16 ounces of 20 penny- 
weights of 30 wheat grains each. It is worth mentioning 
that according to Kelly (* Cambist,' p. 379), the Barbary pound 
of 16 ounces of 160 carobs weighs exactly 7,680 Troy grains, 
being equal to the pound of 16 ounces of 20 pennyweights of 
32 wheat grains. This makes an ounce of 480 Troy grains, 
or 640 wheat grains, to equal in weight an ounce of 160 
carobs, i carob equalling 3 Troy grains or 4 wheat grains. 
Twelve ounces of this pound, therefore, is identical with the 
English Troy pound, and this identity clearly connects our 
Troy grains and weights with those used in Eastern countries. 

' Denarius ' and ' nummus.' 

If an examination be made of the statements given by 
different authorities of ancient coins of the same denomina- 
tion still existing, it will be found that hardly any are described 
as being of exactly the same weight Of course a good 
deal of this variation in weight may be accounted for by the 
wear due to the lapse of time, &c. ; but as long as payments 
were principally made by weight and not by tale, it is possible 
that the actual amount of metal put into the denarius was 
from time to time purposely varied : such a practice (as pay- 
ments were oftener made by weight than by number) might 
be convenient for that arrangement. 

That this was so seems to follow from the purposely and 
oft-repeated statement in D. Bk. of payments to be made * in 
denariis qui sunt xxf* in ora * ; moreover, if an examination be 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 237 

made of Ruding's book on coins, it will be seen that up to the 
time of Guthrum the Dane's treaty with Alfred (alluded to 
post) there can be found no penny or denarius approaching 
the weight of 24 Troy grains ; 18 grains nearly represents the 
average weight, and 288 pence of r8f Troy grains would 
exactly make the 5,400 Troy grains of the Tower pound 
supposed to be Anglo-Saxon. At the time of Guthrum's 
treaty an actual penny containing 24 grains of metal appears 
for the first time in the list of Anglo-Saxon coins, and the 
reason why the actual denarius was so increased in weight 
appears to have arisen from the necessity of a coin in unison 
with the requirements of that treaty made with a king and 
people who used a pound of account supposed to contain 
12 orae, 'denariorum qui sunt XX** in ora,' and giving a 
total of 240 pence in weight instead of 288 in weight in the 
pound. There was another denarius or *nummus' of 30 
wheat grains, 16 ounces of which, with 16 to the ounce, made 
the Mercian mark already alluded to, and (as will be hereafter 
seen) in use in this country long before the advent of the 
Danes at a very early time, and which probably existed in 
England and in Scandinavia before the arrival of the Saxons 
also. This word ' nummus ' was a general term used in refer- 
ence to denarii and ounces of denarii. Thus in D. Bk. Tom. i. 
fol. 164, 'Modo reddit XL lib. alborum nummorum de XX in 
ora ;' and 'Cui committunt solidos ' (i.e. marks of gold) ' triginta 
millia per singulos constanti numero sexdecem nummis ' 
(* Scriptores post Bedam,' p. 837), i.e. orae (each of 16 denarii, 
as mentioned at Pampesford in Cambridgeshire, and referred 
to immediately below on this page, where 4 orae = 64 pence : 
as 7,680 wheat grains = i libra, this would give 30 wheat 
grains to the penny, and 480 to the ounce, and 256 pence to 
the pound). Moreover (though it has been stated by Ellis, 
and has been constantly repeated after him, that the only 
ounce and the only denarius in D. Bk. is the ounce of 12 to 



238 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

the pound and the penny of 20 to the ounce), yet this is not 
so, as the penny of 16 to the ounce alluded to above, and 
fully proved post^ still lingered on as a customary payment 
and is to be found in D. Bk. itself. The * Inquisitio Comi- 
tatus Cantabrigiensis * (being the origincd return from which 
D. Bk. for the county of Cambridge was made up) still exists 
in the Cott MS. Tib. A. vi ; it has been published by Mr. 
Hamilton, London, 1876, and in parallel columns with the 
corresponding entries in D. Bk. 

At page 38 of Mr. Hamilton's book and in f. 96 b, col. 2 of 
the MS. will be found the following, in regard to Pampes- 
uuorde in Cambridgeshire. ' Et in eadem villa tenet quidam 
presbyter dimidiam virgam de Judeta Comitessa; duobus 
bobus est terra. Haec terra valet et valuit iiii haras! This 
in the same page of Mr. Hamilton's book, and in Domesday, 
vol. L p. 202 a, col. 2, is put thus : ' In Pampesuuorde tenet 
unus presbyter de comitessa dimidiam virgam. Valet et 
valuit Ixiiii dmar! From this single entry, and from the 
entry in Hundred Rolls, 2 vol. p. 414, col. 2, where this hold- 
ing is called 32 acres (of ' wara,' see/^^/), we can gather that 
the area of a virgate at Pampesford with the fallow was 64 
acres, which at a penny an acre would give 256 pence to the 
pound, and 256 acres to the hide, 16 pennies to the ounce, 
and 16 ounces to the pound, coinciding in every respect with 
the entries in regard to the land Inter Ripam (set out post) 
in the time of Edward the Confessor. 

Solidiis, Scilling. 

The solidus, or scilling, as used in ancient and pre-Domes- 
day matters of account, did not necessarily mean any one 
particular and existing coin, but implied either a piece or 
quantity of uncoined silver or gold of a certain weight, or 
some number of smaller, and perhaps actually existing, coins 
grouped tc^ether into one item of account and called a 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 239 

soHdus or shilling. These solidi or shillings were called 
aurei or ai^entei, according to whether they related to gold 
or silver. Thus, as will be seen later on, there was in England 
the Mercian mark of gold, or solidus of 16 solidi of 16 
* nummi ' or pence, as also there was on the Continent the 
shilling of weighed gold, alluded to in the note to page 16 of 
voL i. of Thorpe's 'Ancient Laws and Institutions.' The 
original shilling of account of the Anglo-Saxons would 
appear to be, as has been stated, a solidus supposed to equal 
4 denarii of 20 grains Troy, and this would agree as a matter 
of account with the i8f grains in the actual penny of the 
Tower pound. The shilling of account of the Danes and 
Normans was i2d, of 24 grains Troy each, and this agrees 
with the then new solidus of 5 denarii of Alfred's treaty, 
containing 24 grains each, 48 of the latter equalling 20 of the 
former. The Mercian solidus or ora of i6d. of 30 wheat 
grains, or 22^ gjrains Troy, would thus equal 15 denarii of 24 
grains of the Norman and Danish pound. There was thus at 
the time of D. Bk. the solidus of 5 denarii of 24 grains Troy, 
the Mercian solidus or ora of 16 denarii of 30 wheat grains, 
the Norman and Danish solidus of 12 denarii of 24 grains 
Troy, and the old Anglo-Saxon soHdus of 4 denarii, and all 
moneys of account. 

Ounce, Ora. 

The ounce of course was originally the twelfth part of a 
pound, but the Scandinavian word ora had a more extended 
meaning : it was applied to signify a larger number of ounces 
in the pound; thus, as we shall see, a pound of 12 orae of 
2od. of the Danes and Normans was equalled by 16 solidi or 
orae of i6(i. each of the Mercians. 

The Libra and Mercian Mark. 

A libra was, as is well known, divided uncially by the 
Romans into 12 unciae of 24 scrupula of 24 lentes, and such 



240 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

was the division of the uncia, or uinge, among the Celts in 
Ireland, who had, like the Anglo-Saxons, their long hundred, 
and used the duodecimal system in their measurements of land. 
In the Brehon Laws, vol. iii. p. io6, it appears that with 
the Irish Celts a screpall equalled 3 pinguins, and that a 
pinguin weighed 8 grains of wheat : taking 4 wheat grains to 
equal 3 grains Troy, a screpall would therefore equal 18 grains 
Troy. From vol. ii. p. 134, the following table can be made 
out: — 

I screpall. 

4 B colpatch heifer i. 
16 » 4 saxn haisc heifer i. 
24 = 6 « ij = cow I uinge or ounce. 

72>ai8B3§B 3-« Cumhall (female slave) I, vol. iil p. 98. 

288 «» 72 « 18 » 12 » 4 B I (libra?). 

There would thus be 6,912 wheat grains, or 5,184 Troy 
grains, in 12 uinges, though the Celts in Ireland do not seem 
to have known the libra proper. Considering that in matters 
of account the items of account must in some measure con- 
form to actually existing coins or weights of uncoined metal, 
that the average weight of known Anglo-Saxon coins (struck 
before the Danish treaty of Guthrum) is under 20 grains 
Troy ; that the Anglo-Saxons, like the Irish Celts, used the 
long hundred in their calculations, and that by their system 
of measurement the decempedal rod was divided into duo- 
decimal divisions, it seems to be most probable that they too, 
in matters of account, divided their pound and ouncbs in the 
like way — that is, duodecimally. This supposition is sup- 
ported by the fact that there are entries in D. Bk. where 
ten acres are taxed at 12 deijarii, five acres at 6 denarii, and 
so on. If the Saxon penny contained 20 grains, and the 
Norman penny 24 grains, as I suggest, then it is clear that 
10 Norman pennies would give one penny an acre, and would 
equal the 12 denarii supposed to be Saxon (Harduic, D. Bk., 
vol. i. p. 191b). 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 241 

In Jeakes' weights and measures, in his * Arithmetic Sur- 
veyed and Reviewed' (London, 1596), it appears from the 
* Pathway to Knowledge ' quoted therein, * that the avoirdupois 
pound was parted in 16 ounces, every ounce into 8 drachms, 
and every drachm into 3 scruples, and every scruple into 
20 grains ; 12 ounces of this pound would thus be the Troy 
pound, divided according to the supposed Anglo-Saxon 
division in account, and would be in reality the old standard. 
This would show the origin of Apothecaries' weight. Medicines 
were dispensed by this old subdivision of the pound, and 
continued to be so after the pound of Elizabeth had sup- 
planted the old one. It was then natural that the ounce, 
drachm, and scruple — which were no aliquot parts of the new 
pound avoirdupois, but which were aliquot parts of the pound 
Troy — should be referred to the latter.' The Danish and 
Norman divisions of the pound were those disclosed by 
D. Bk., and now existing in the pound Troy, viz. 12 ounces 
to the pound and 20 pennyweights to the ounce. In a 
treaty between peoples who divided their money of account 
in different ways, it would be only reasonable that one should 
be adopted by which the clauses of the treaty would be 
regulated. Such seems to have been the course pursued by 
the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum cited below, where 
it is expressly stated that the scilling of account was to be 
S denarii. See also the 3rd of the Ecclesiastical Laws of 
Canute, and the comments thereon in the ' Chronicon Pretio- 
sum,' p. 29. This, of course, would give 48 scillings of 5 denarii 
to the pound, and would fit in with the 12 orae of 20 denarii 
to the ora of the Danes and Normans, and to the 16 orae of 
16 denarii of 30 wheat grains of the Mercian libra or mark ; 
more especially since in regard to the latter the Mercian 
King Ethelred (as appears by the quotation from his laws 
referred to above) ordered his pound of 16 orae to be marked 
15, which it in fact equalled in weight when 32 wheat grains, 

VOL. U R 



242 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

or 24 Troy, were reckoned to the denarius instead of 30 wheat 
grains. 

This Mercian mark was not the mark of six ounces of 
gold of later times, which equalled six pounds of silver 
(Madox, Exch. p. 189), but was in computation an ounce or 
solidus of gold, and equalled, as we have seen, 1 5 solidi or 
ounces (Madox, p. 189, note 6), or a libra of 16 ounces 
of 16 denarii of 30 wheat grains, was perhaps, as already 
hinted, of Scandinavian origin, but was undoubtedly intro- 
duced into this country at a very early time, seemingly at 
or before the Anglo-Saxon settlements. The first recorded 
mention of this mark (that I can find) appears in connection 
with Ina's raid into Kent, shortly after the commencement of 
the eighth century (long before the advent of the Danes into 
this country), and the ransom taken by him in consequence 
of its success. We have four separate descriptions of this 
ransom — first, that of Malmesbury ' De Gest. Reg.' p. 14, 
' Nundinantur pacem xxx millibus auri marcis ' ; secondly, 
of the Saxon Chronicle (Ingram, p. 58), where it is called 
thirty thousand librae ; and, thirdly, that of (the earliest of 
the writers) Ethelwerd (not a Danish writer), in Gale's 
*Scriptores post Bedam,' p. 837, *Cui committunt solidos 
triginta millia per singulos canstanti numero sexdecim nummisl 
— i.e. 16 orae (of 16*?). The fourth description is that of 
Florence of Worcester, who states it at 3,750 librae : now 
30,000 mand of eight to the pound do make 3,750 pounds. 
But Ethelwerd, the earliest writer, distinctly says, ' constanti 
numero sexdecim nummts! We have, therefore, i libra 
(whether we take 3,750 librae or whether we take 30,000 
librae), equalling i solidus of 16 nummi. Now, the libra of 
Florence and that of Malmesbury was 240 pence, or 7,680 
wheat grains; the 'nummus' alluded to was therefore 480 
wheat grains — that is, 16 denarii of 30 grains, which equal 
15 denarii of 32 wheat grains. Moreover, taking 8 manci to 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 243 

a pound, the mancus would be 30 (2 x 15) pence of 32 wheat 
grains, which equal 32 pence (2 x 16) of 30 wheat grains — 
that is, 256 pence of 30 grains. This mark of 256 nummi 
or pence to a pound of 16 ounces still continued as the 
money of account among the Mercians at the time of the 
treaty between Guthrum, the Danish king, and Alfred — a 
treaty intended to embrace the whole of England, and to 
place the 'were' for blood- shedding on an equal footing 
for Saxon, Mercian, and Dane, and, as all these are stated in 
It to be equally * dear,' we may therefore take the price of 
the several weres to be reckoned in equivalent weights or 
sums of money, though stated in different ways in the dif- 
ferent clauses of the treaty. This treaty is to be found in 
Thorpe's • Ancient Laws arid Institutes of England,' printed 
by command, &c., vol. i. p. 153, in the section headed 'The 
Laws of King Alfred.' Amongst other clauses we first find 
the following: — 

* This the peace that King jtElfredy and King Guthrum, 
and the '* Witan " of all the English nation, and all the people 
that are in East Anglia ordained, and have sworn to, as well 
for themselves as for their offspring, 

• \st. Concerning their land, boundaries, &c. 

*2nd. And they ordained : if a man should be slain, we 
estimate dear, English and Danish at viii half marks of pure 
gold; besides the *^ ceorV who resides in ^^ gafol landl^ and their 
"liesings " .• they also are equally dear either at cc shillings' 

We also find at vol. ii. p. 473, a Latin version of the same 
clause as follows : — * De precio occisi Dad vel Angli, II, Hoc 
est autem primum : si quis occidatur omnes reputamus eque 
caroSf Daaim et Anglum, ad viii dimidias mar cos cocti auri, 
preter ceorlum, i,e, rusticum, qui in Gaffuland, Le, in terra 
censaria, manet, et eorum redemptiones sunt eque care, cc soU 
From this it is very clear that the ' mark of gold ' could not 
be the mancus of 30 pence. Moreover, in the • Leges Hen. I. * 
Ixx. 89, the 8 half-marks of pure gold are put as four librae, 



244 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

clearly showing that the mark of gold was equivalent to a libra. 
So also, in Ducange {voc. Marca et Libra), ' Marca et libra 
in Anglia unum et idem interdum sonant Charta ann. 1296, 
apud eundem Rymer, tom. 2, page 732 : " Cum nos conces- 
serimus dilecto clerico nostro Gilberto . . . quandam ecclesiam 
viginti marcarum vel librarum valorem annuum attingentem^' 
Florence of Worcester, who died 434 years after Ina's raid, 
evidently confused the mancus of 30 pence with the mark of 
gold which equalled a pound. The money payments for the 
Dane and Englishman were therefore to be equivalent in 
whatever money they might be stated in. In vol. li. p. 481, 
we have the more detailed account of the money value of 
these * equally dear ' weregilds as follows : — 

'De Weregildis. 

* Twi hindi hominis wera est twa-hundy scilicet ducenti sol. 
ex V scL denariisy quifaciunt iiii lib. et xl d. 

' Twelf hindi hominis weregildum est twelf-hund scillinga 
i.e. duodecies c sol. qui faciunt libras xxv* (this is six times 
the former amount). 

Page 484, vol. li. ' De eisdem in Mercennorum laga ' : 

* Ceorles Weregildum est in Mercetmorum laga cc sol. Tayni 
Weregildum est sexies tantum^ i.e. duodecies c sol. Regis simpbim 

weregildum est sex taynorum weregildum^ in Mercennorum laga 
hoc est XXX * (Anglico numero 36,000) * millia sceattce^ id est tota- 
liter cxx libre* — i.e. in weight, not in tale. In other versions 
* sceattx ' do not appear, but * thrimsae ' take their place. Pence 
probably were meant, as 36,000 sceatts could not possibly 
equal 150 pounds of Alfred's money. (As to the value of the 
sceatta, see Thorpe's Glossary, at the end of the second 
volume, where he makes 30 sceats to equal i^ scillinga.) 
Multiplying the Anglo-Saxon twelf-hund *were' by six (as 
in the Mercian laga) for the king's ' were,' we have 1 50 librae, 
equalling in weight 120 Mercian librae. One- hundred and 
twenty of Ethelred's new pound (afterwards adopted by 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



245 



Canute) oi fifteen ounces of twenty pennyweights do equal 
one hundred and fifty pounds of twelve ounces of twenty 
pennyweights. Stating the Mercian 'were/ however, in its 
own money^ we have 150 librae of 16 ounces of 16 Mercian 
pence, equalling in weight 150 librae of 12 ounces of 20 pence. 
Thus, as 36,000 treaty pence equal 38,400 Mercian pence, 
the treaty pennies must therefore weigh -jV niore than the 
Mercian penny ; in other words, the one penny would be 32 
wheat grains and the other 30. The twi-hund man and the 
Mercian ceorl's 'were ' is said to be 200 scillinga of 5 denarii 
each: this stated in Troy grains is 24,000 grains, which 
equal 32,000 wheat grains, 32 wheat grains equalling 24 
grains Troy. On the same page (484) there is another 
clause (vi.) which says, * Ceorles WeregUdum est cclxvi thrimsce 
— ije, cc sol, secundum lagam Mercennorum! The tremissis, 
or thrimsa, is the third part (as its name implies) of a shilling 
of 12 denarii, i.e. 4^. (see the quotation from the ' Leges 
Alamannicae,' anti). Putting 30 wheat grains to the Mercian 
penny, as stated above, we have 120 wheat grains in the 
tremissis or thrymsa, and dividing 32,000 wheat grains by 
120 we find that the Ccdculation is correct, and that there are 
266| thrimsae of 4^. in the 32,000 grains (wheat), each 
thrymsa equalling 4 Mercian pennies of 30 wheat grains. 
It will be seen that 266| is the exact calculation ; in another 
account the number of thrimsae is put at 267. The following 
table shows the calculation at a glance : — 



The Ceoii. lysing and 

twihinds were 
Tayns were (6 times) 
Kings were (6 times) 



90O 

x,aoo 
7,aoo 



x6o 
x6o 
x6o 



1 



39,000 

X93,00O 

X, 153,000 



do a 



4» 
as 

ISO 



0*0 « 
2 



d*S % 

2 



4l 
as 

ISO 



•66(1) 
x,6oo 
9,600 



9,600 thrimsas s 36,000 Alfred's pence. 



246 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



This thus explains the law of King Ethelred the Mercian 
(afterwards adopted in the laws of King Canute) in regard to 
the moneyers, in the clause headed *De monetariis et ubi 
erunt/ Thorpe (vol. i. p. 303) in which Ethelred directs that 
there shall be three moneyers in each high port (sumtno 
portu) and in every other port one moneyer, * Ut omnepondus 
sit marcatum ad pondus quo pecunia mea recipitUTy et eomnt 
singulum signetur ita quod 15 ore librant faciant* A pound 
of 16 orae of Mercian pennyweights of 30 wheat grains being 
equal to a pound of 15 orae of pennyweights of 32 wheat 
grains, or 24 Troy, The same thing in effect was done by 
the declaratory statute of Ed. I., already quoted, by which 
32 wheat grains are ordered to go to the penny sterling. 
According to the above calculation, the following table repre- 
sents the equivalent number of pence and solidi in the pound 
and mark, and grains of the same. 





^1 
obb 

2 


'o 

1 


•->. 


t 
.5 


.S 

t 


t 
S 


i^ 


*3| 


a 


^ 


Norman and Daziish 




















1 . 


pound . 


7,680 


940 


3a 


xa 


ao 


384 


10 


so 


zao 


60 30 1 


Mercian mark . 


7.680 


956 


30 


16 


x6 


480 


8 


40 


za8 


64 32 



I have been thus particular in explanation of this Mercian 
mark of 16 solidi of 16 pence (or 256 in all) because we have 
in D. Bk. itself, relating to the Survey of that part of Mercia 
lying between the Ribble and the Mersey (the land of the 
Cheshire acre of 10,240 square yards founded on the pole of 
sixteen feet), a recital showing the number of carucae that 
there went to a hide and their * valets * at the time of Edward 
the Confessor. 

These ' valets * are there sometimes stated in Danish or 
Norman currency, of 12 ounces or orae of denarii to the 
pound, and in others in the Mercian currency tallying exactly 
with the foregoing tables, i.e. that which gives 16 orse or solidi 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 247 

of 16 pence to the pound or mark; but there is a general 
statement applyuig to all these carucae and the thains who 
owned them to be found at the head of the second column of 
fol. 269 b, D. Bk. running thus : * Omnes isti taint habu- 
erunt consuetudinem reddere it oras denariorutn de unaquaqtie 
caruca^ The length of time necessary to support a aistont 
would carry back the existence of this Mercian money to a 
time long antecedent to that of the Danish irruptions. 

I have extracted from D. Bk. and placed in the next 
table below the manors to which the recital refers, their 
carucse and their valets as stated in D. Bk., placing in 
adjoining columns such valets in Norman and Mercian 
currency, the figures in brackets being mine. As the valet 
for one car is stated to be 32 denarii or 2 ores, it follows that 
each Mercian ora or solidus contained 16 denarii, as at Pampes- 
uuorde in Cambridgeshire, ante. We learn also from the 
valets of Latune and Hirleton, where half a hide is put at 
10 sol. and 8 denarii (128 pence), that there must have been 
four car in half a hide (4x32) or eight in a whole one ; the 
valet, therefore, for a whole hide was 256 Mercian pence or 
one mark, equalling, as shown in the subjoined table in other 
entries, one Norman pound of 240 pence. This recital of 
D. Bk. refers to manors, lands, and carucae as they were in the 
time of Eldward the Confessor when held by Roger Picta- 
vensis : the statement of the same lands and the re-arranged 
carucae working thereon when held by the grantees of Roger 
at the time of D. Bk. is placed later on in the same folio, and 
shows different carucae and uniform valets in Norman money. 
It has been seen that by the valets one hide by custom would 
pay 256 pence (8 x 32). Supposing, then, that 32 Mercian 
pence represented the payment for a virgate (and we know 
that it did from the entry in regard to Stochestede where a 
virgate and a half is valued at 4 sol, i.e. 3 Mercian solidi of 16 
pence each, pr 4 solidi of 12, i.e. in all 48 pence), it follows that 



248 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



there were 8 virgates in a hide each valued at 32 Mercian pence 
per virgate ; this at one penny per acre would give 16 acres to 
the bovate, 32 to the virgate, and 256 to the hide or pound- 
paying unit The significance of this will appear further on. 

I hide B 256 acres, ue, 8 riiigfttes of 32 acres « 16 borates of 16 acres. 

Sioglecar. - 3a „ i „ 

* Double car. a 64 „ 2 „ See below, Hitune, Erengermeles, Melioge 

and HeleshaU. 
Norman, 240 den. to pound, 20 sol. to pound, I2i£ to soL, 32 grains to den. 
Mercian, 256 ,, 16 „ i6d. 30 „ 











Norman 


Mercian 












• Valet • 


Value in 


Value in 








No. of 


No. of 


T. R. E. as 


Denarii 


Denarii 


No of 


The 'Valet* 


Name of Manor 


Hides 


'Car/ 


stated in 
D. Bk. 


(39 wheat 

grains to 

den.) 


(30 wheat 
srains to 
•den.) 


Grains 


stated in 


Hitune . 


I 


4* 


2OSOL 


240 


256 


7.680 


Nonnan money 


Stochestcde . 


(A)iivirg. 


di) 


4 » 


45 


48 


1.440 


Mercian „ 


Sextone . 


I 


(8) 


16 „ 


240 


256 


7,680 


,, ., 


Chirchedele . 


' 




(4) 


10 ,» 


120 


128 


3.840 


Nonnan „ 


Liderlant 


■ 


. 


(4) 


8 M 


120 


128 


3.840 


Mercian „ 


Hinne • 






(4) 


8 ., 


120 


128 


3.840 


,, „ 


Torentun • 


■ 




(4) 


8 ., 


120 


128 


3,J*40 


,, ,. 


Mele . 






(4) 


8 .. 


120 


128 


3.840 


,. *. 


Uluentune 


(■ 


I 


2 


64 den. 


60 


64 


1,920 


t. ,. 


Esmedune 


( 


) 


I 


32 „ 


30 


32 


960 


ft >. 


Alretune 






(4) 


8soL 


120 


128 


3.840 


t» *. 


Spec . . 


( 


) 


2 


64 den. 


60 


64 


1,920 
3.840 


,t •* 


Cildcninelle . 






(4) 


8 sol. 


120 


128 


*, t. 


Wilbaldeslei . 


( 


) 


2 


64 den. 


60 


64 


1,920 


*. », 


Vuetone. 


( 


) 


I 


30 „ 


30 


32 


960 


Norman „ 


Wauretreu 


( 


) 


2 


64 M 


60 


64 


1,920 


Mercian „ 


Boltclai • 


( 


) 


2 


64 M 


60 


64 


1,920 


ft „ 


Achetun. 


(i 


) 


I 


32 >. 


30 


32 


960 


„ .. 


Fomebd 


( 


) 


4 


10 sol. 


120 


128 


3.840 


Norman „ 


Emuluesldel . 


(; 


) 


2 


64 den. 


60 


64 


1,920 


Mercian „ 


Holland. 


( 


) 


2 


64 .. 


60 


64 


1.920 


t. 1, 1 


Daltone . 


(1 


) 


I 


32 M 


30 


32 


960 


ft ,. 


Schelmeresdcle 


(i 


) 


I 


32 „ 


30 


32 


960 


ft «. 




( 


r) 


U)2* 


SsoL 


120 


128 


3.840 


f, ft 


Otegrimele . 




r 


(4) 


10 ., 


120 


128 


3.840 


Norman „ 


Latune . 




■ 


(4) 


10 sol. 8^. 


120 


128 


3.840 




Herletune 




■ 


(4) 


10 sol &/. 


120 


128 


3,840 


t. .. 


Melinge. 


( 


) 


(4) 2* 


10 sol. 


120 


128 


3.840 


Nonnan „ \ 


Bartune . 


<l 


r) 


I 


32 den. 


30 


32 


960 


Mercian „ 


HeleshaU . 


( 


) 


(4)2^ 


8 sol. 


120 


128 


3.840 


fi tf 
















/ 2,992 ac - 
















93i car. of 


Total 


"H 


93i 


pence . 


2,80s 


2,992 


— 


32 acres to 
car. s I 


»» • 


— 


— 


grains 


89,760 


89,760 


89.760 


virg. 
f liU hides of 
1 256 to hide ! 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 249 

This system of dividing units of weights and measures 
into divisions of 8 and 16 (which I call in this paper the sex- 
decimal system) I have traced back as to money (already 
shown) to the time of Ina in the Jutish or Gothic kingdom 
of Kent, and as to measures of land {post) to the time of 
Dynval in his kingdom, whether confined to Wales or (as is 
much more probable) extended to a large portion of British 
England. But the system is one of very ancient times, and 
appears to be referred to by Lappenberg in his * History of 
England' under the Anglo-Saxon kings (Translation by 
Thorpe, vol. i. p. 74 et seg.), ' The events in the Saga of the 
CEscings or founders of the kingdom of Kent take place in 
an eight times repeated cycle of eight years. Whether the 
number eight was merely the division given by the probably 
historic numbers of forty and sixty-four, or whether it had 
an astronomic allusion, or was founded on some myth, we 
are unable to discover. We find the number 8 in the division 
of the 24 hours from one morning to another usual among 
the Anglo-Saxons and Icelanders. A similar division exists 
in the eight watches among mariners. As at Rome the 
period of eight days was superseded only by the Jewish 
Christian week of seven days, so both German and Scandi- 
navian colloquial terms point to a similar division of time in 
the heathen world.' 

But though this inquiry is based on the divisions of the 
pound of silver and the land in connection with it as divided 
into corresponding divisions, I will not here consider further 
the relative weights of different pounds of silver any more 
than I shall after having once for all shown the relative differ- 
ence in the size of acres and the cause of such difference 
further consider such difference, but shall show how the 
grouping of acres, virgates, and bovates corresponded with 
these three divisions of the pound of silver. We have, then, 
evidence of there having been in these islands three dis- 
tinct divisions of a pound of silver: one showing a divi- 



250 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

sion into 240 pence, another into 256 pence, and another 
into 288 pence. The pound I call Mercian corresponds in 
its divisions with the ancient weight of France, called the 
Poids de Marc, which was the same for precious metals, and 
the customary apothecaries' weight — viz. 16 oz., 32 duelles, 
128 sciliques, 256 drachms. According to Rhys the Britons 
came from Gaul, driving out the Goidels. The divisions are 
the same as of the Colc^ne Marc, which was declared the 
standard weight for the precious metals throughout Germany 
by an edict of Charles V. in IS24, All these divisions, it 
will be observed, are in the sexdecimal system. 

11. DIVISIONS OF THE LAND. 
Poles or Virgcs^ Acra^ BovcUa^ and VirgaUt, 

Measurements of tracts of land were made in ancient as 
well as in modem times, by poles (perticae, quani, acenae, virgae, 
&c.) and by chains or ropes (forrachs, rapae, socaria, &c.) being 
presumably multiples of the poles. It may be a question, how- 
ever, whether the larger unit (such as a square leuca or league, 
as at Battle Abbey, in Sussex, or the five squares of 10 trevs 
each contained in the Welsh Cymwd of 12,800 erws (of 
1,440 square statute yards each) equalling 3,200 Cornish 
acres, was not first roped off and then subdivided by the 
pole into smaller units such as the hides or carucates, trevs 
and maenols, &c., and the still smaller units of roods or erws 
and acres. It is more reasonable to suppose that a people 
(occupying a land for the first time, either by conquest or other- 
wise) should plot out portions of the land into large units, and 
then subdivide them into smaller units, than that they should 
begin with the smallest unit and add unit to unit up to a cer- 
tain point of squareness, and then stop. The varying features 
of the land would not permit of such an arrangement But 
as in the America of to-day, so in the Yorkshire of old, it 
seems to me, the land in the first instance was blocked out 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 251 

into rectangular figures, and then subdivided by dividing 
the same into inferior divisions by the numbers 8, 10, or 12, 
and these again into further subdivisions till the smallest 
unit of all was reached. By using the same pole as the 
bigger unit was measured by, all the land within it that was 
suitable for arable purposes might be divided into perches, 
roods, and acres, which would all bear the same relative pro- 
portions to themselves and to the bigger unit as was orginally 
contemplated when the big block containing pastures and 
wood, as well as land suitable for arable purposes, was first 
set out (see 'Ordinance of Measures,' detailing the length 
and breadth of an acre — fost). In some old maps of manors 
that I have had access to I can trace the ancient rectangular 
figures as clearly as possible, though I can well imagine that 
in the majority of modern maps the open fields of old 
would no more show any sign of the * squareness ' of the big 
block than the manors or villae in Yorkshire do at the present 
day after the absorption by assartation or otherwise of 
unallotted land intervening between the several blocks. If 
we could only group together the several fractions as they 
now exist, I have little doubt that they would be found 
to compose the bigger blocks that I have referred to. If 
reference is made to a map of Ireland, which sometimes shows 
the town-lands or old ballybetaghs ('food -paying units' of 4 
quarters), it is plain that many of these town-lands are of the 
shape or form of 4 seisrichs or plough-lands, though not of 
mathematical straightness, and if three of them are placed 
side by side a rough square, as shown in diagram, post^ would 
be produced. Though to King Alfred has been given the 
credit of grouping the country into tithings and hundreds, yet 
perhaps after all he only made use of a previously existing 
distribution of the land which had been before his time roped 
out on some definite principle into the larger units. The 
several manors in Domesday Book are arranged according 
to the names of the tenants in capite^ &c., in the several 



252 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

counties. We therefore do not get therein the number of 
hides and carucates in any one particular villa or place 
grouped together so as to enable us to say how many of the 
smaller units (hides and carucates, &c.) they respectively 
held, and it would require a great deal of local knowledge 
and labour to group them together now ; but there happens 
still to be in existence a MS., Cott. Tiberius A. vL, viz. 
the 'Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis ' (published by Mr. 
N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London, 1876), being the Inquisition of 
the Jury, containing their survey for most of the hundreds in the 
county of Cambridge, arranged in villas, and not in tenancies 
in capite^ from which it is possible, in regard to that county, 
to get to some extent the ancient grouping of Alfred, or 
the original distribution of the land before his time : some 
few pages are missing from the MS., but their contents I 
have supplied from Domesday, and the result is as follows : — 

Out of 1 12 villas or parishes there are 4 of thirty hides, 
2 of twenty-five, 7 of twenty, ii^ of fifteen, 4 of twelve, 32 
of ten, 2 of eight, S of seven, 28 of five, 6 of four, i of three, 
2 of three and a half. It will be observed that more than half 
contain ten and five hides, and that there is no unit of six 
hides. 

In some cases, by putting adjoining villae together it 
would be possible still further to increase the number of fives, 
tens, fifteens, or twenties, and thus reduce fractions. I have 
ventured to do so in only one case, being a very prominent 
instance. One of the villse of 25 hides I have made up out 
of the three adjoining villae of Euresdone (Hamilton, 83) 
8 hides -h 40 acres, Chingeston (Hamilton, 85) 8 + 40, and 
Tosth (Hamilton, 87)8 + 40, the original unit being evidently 
one compact whole of 25, or 2 units often and i of 5. It is 
to be noticed that 3 x 40 acres would make up 12 quarantenes, 
or I strip of 120 acres. Now a square leuga is an imaginary 
block of land of four sides, each a mile and a half long ; that 
is, 120 chains, or 7,920 stat. feet of 305 millimetres to the foot. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 253 

The contents of such a block, therefore, contains 1440 statute 
acres. Ten units of 120 acres, ' Anglico numero' {see post), 
are 1440 acres : so it is more than probable that in very 
many cases where a villa 'defends itself* for ten hides 
or carucates it contains 1,200 taxable acres + 240 'extra 
hidam ' (see post, Anglicus numerus), and perhaps a further 
quantity if the land is 'wara,* i.e. the fallow untaxed, the 
sum total making up some multiple of 120. Moreover, in 
D. Bk. in a very large proportion of the manors of York- 
shire we have a statement giving the contents of the whole 
manor, i.e. the amount of the gelclable and ungeldable land. 
The entries are in the following shape : ' Totum manerium 
una leuga longitudine et una latitudine.' * Totum manerium 
dimidium leugae longitudine et dimidium leugae latitudine.' 
' Totum una leuga longitudine et dimidium leugae latitudine * — 
being 1440, 360, and 720 acres respectively, and so on. If 
an examination is made of these entries it is impossible to 
arrive at any other conclusion than that the land has been 
divided into groups of units of 120 acres, each twelve of 
which make, as we have seen, a square league, i.e. 10 x 144. 
Of these Yorkshire manors we find 42 manors of 2^ units, 
96 manors of 5 units, 122 manors of 10 units or a square 
Uague, 17 manors of 15 units, 31 manors of 20 units, 5 manors 
of 30, and 12 of 40 units ; the absence of units of 6 and of 
12 is noticeable, as it naturally would be where 5 meant 6 
and 10 meant 12. This unit or square league is shown 
below. It is called an Anglican Leuga, and consists of twelve 
into twelve squares, each of 3,600 square poles ol feet, what- 
ever the foot was, or of 1,600 square poles of cubits^ whatever 
the cubit was ; the tenth part of one of such squares of poles 
would be one acre, both it and its pole being totally unaf- 
fected by the lightness or stiffness of the soil An acre would 
therefore be 360 square poles, i.e. 6 x 60 poles reckoned in 
feet, and 160 square poles, i.e. 4 x 40 poles reckoned in ses- 
quipedales cubits. These remarks hold good in regard to 



254 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

the decimal and duodecimal systems. But the lai^ unit 
might be a unit founded on the sexdecimal system, i.e. on 
poles of i6 ; it would then consist of eight into ten plots of 
2,880 square poles (weight into eight squares, each of 3,600 
square poles) of feet, whatever the foot was, or eight into ten 
plots of 1,280 square poles of cubits of whatever the cubit 
was, and the eighth part of such a plot would be an acre as 
before. A diagram showing this, i.e. the one (of the two 
diagrams) marked ' sexdecimal,' is to be found in the remarks 
on the Battle Abbey Leuga— ;^^j/. I think, then, that the 
acre is deduced from the larger unit, and that the latter is not 
built up from multiples of the acre unit ; more especially as 
the Ordinance of Measures 33 Ed. I. adapts the shape of 
the latter to the necessities of cultivation arising from the 
endless variety of the features of the ground within the leuga. 
Moreover, I cannot find one instance in D. Bk. where a single 
acre is used as a unit of measurement, and only one where 
acres are mentioned in measuring at all, viz. Carswelle, in 
Devonshire (D. Bk., fol. 104, col. i.) — *V quarantenae in 
longitudine et xxx acrae in latitudine," i.e. 3 quarantenes 
broad. In order to explain the diagrams and the succeed- 
ing ones, I give here a scale of rods. As to the classical feet 
and cubits, such as the Royal, the Statute, the Olympian, the 
Egyptian, the Drusian, the Scotch or Babylonian (314-7 mm.), 
I must refer my readers to Hultsch's *Graechische und 
Romische Metrologie' (Berlin, 1882), where that part of the 
subject is exhausted, and also to Kelly's 'Cambist' {post), 
which shows the different countries in which these feet and 
their modifications are now used {see post). 

Scale of Rods. 

These rods represent rods of sesquipedales cubits and of 
feet If a rod of feet was used the measurers would, as a 
rule, drop the rod 6 times for the base of the acre ; if a rod 
of cubits {\\ ft.) was used they would drop it 4 times only. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 

D E 

H I 



255 



i 


\ 1 


B ( 




-f 


-I 




-2 


-2 




■3 


-3 
-4 




■4 


-s 




-5 


.6 




-6 


■7 




-7 


-8 




-8 


-9 




-9 


-10 


Naof 
feet' and 
•cubits.' 


10 


II 



■3 



12 



-7 



10 



-12 



13 



6 



-2 



■3 



•s 



■8 



10 



12 



-10 



II 



12 



-4 



6 



-8 



10 

II 

12 

13 
I3l 



-3 
-4 
-5 
6 

7 
-8 

9 
10 
II 
•12 
13 
14 
-IS 
-16 

17 
18 



■3 



-6 



■7 



8 





M 




.1 




•2 


L 


•3 


-I 


•4 


-2 


-5 


-3 


-6 


-4 


-7 




.8 


■5 






-9 


-6 






-10 


-7 


•11 


-8 


-12 


•9 


-13 


-10 


-14 


.11 


-.5 


12 


16 



N 



-4 



-8 



10 



.11 



A Dntsun rod 
B Statute rod 



of 10 ft. of '334JB> =3*34™. 

of xx ft. of '304111. =3*34111. 

of xa ft. of '979m.t=3'34ni. 
D Rod of X4 ft. of '304111. =4'a6ni. 

I Rod (of Royal feet) of xa ft. of '355m. B4'a6in. 
F Westmoreland rod of 13 ft. of '3408m. = 3'96in. 
G Rod of xa ft of '3301x1. S3'96ia. 



c Anglo-Sax. rod 
Rod 



H Paladr of N. Wales of 13) ft. of '3041x1. =4'ioni. 
I Dynval'srod ofx8 ft. of *a38m.=4'xoin. 

X Gad fUathen 

Gyvelin) of 9 ft. of '304m.«a'73m. 

L Gad of xa ft. of 'aaSm. =a'73m. 

M Dyn val's long Yoke of x6 ft. of 'aaSm. = 3 '6401. 
N Doodedmal rod of xa ft. of '304XIL s3-64in. 
t Osnaborg foot, which is the ' step foot * of '335. See Appendix, pp. 365 and 373. 

The rods tnatked * are of statute measure ; the rod standing next each of these, being of equal 
length, was most probably the real rod that was used originally, h perhaps also the Irthling- 
boroagh shaft. 

NoTB.— The statute foot is '3048 m. The rod d is the one on which the Irish, Welsh, and 
Enslkh acres of 7,8^^0 square yards are built on or the alternative duodecimal rod marked B. In 
addidon to these rods, there u the t6-feet rod of the foot of 304 mm. and a 'gad ' of half its sixe. 
Also a rod of x8 statute feet (a double gad), being in length a4 ' feet ' of a38 mm. (Dynval's 
' foot Ti on which the Anglesey acre is built. The x6-feet of '3048 is a decempedal rod of 
Genevan feet of '4876 m.. and the Enalish ell of x'x4 m. is also the Genevan ell. The i8-feet- 
statutesthe douMr gad ora4 of Dynvafs ' feet' of 'aaS m. 



256 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



An Anglican Leuga. 

Each side = 7,920 of the stat. foot, 304 mm. 
or » 7,200 of the foot of 334 mm. 
or a 8,640 of the foot of 279 mm. 



A 




B 




c 


D 
XO 


The Leuga might be 
distributed into any 
number of Quamntenes, 
stadia, or stadiales agris 
from I to 144. In the 
Appendix I have taken 
I as the unit. 






13 






AA 


BB 


CC 



The whole leuga is composed of twelve imaginary strips 
(each of 120 acres), like those shown above, and, for purposes 
of illustration, we will suppose them equal in area. 

Each of the strips A, B, C, is composed of 12 ('stadia' ; 
see Ducange, vac. * Leuca gallica ') quarantenes or squares of 
ten statutory acres each, but they are not drawn to scaler as 
E represents 12 acres, and D, AA, B B, and cc represent 10 
acres, each individual acre (in £ as well as in D, &c.) being, 
however, identical in area ; so there would be ten plots of E 
in column C, and 12 plots of D in column A. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 257 

The rod or pertica on which A is built up is one of 10 feet 
of 334 mm. =3-34 m^tre. The Chinese * mathematical foot ' 
is the same foot It is the Drusian foot of 18 digits used by 
the Tungri, See Hultsch, pp. 526, 572, and 693. 

The rod on which B is built up is the statutory rod of 
II feet of 304 mm. = 3-34 mitre. 

The rod on which c is built up is of 12 feet of 279 mm. 
=3'34 mfetre. This foot is the same as the Osnaburg foot, 
and the rod is the same rod as the rod of 3*34 m. first men- 
tioned, but divided into 12 divisions or feet, thus producing 
the Osnaburg foot of '279 m. 

All these rods are exactly equal in length, though dif- 
ferently divided into 10^ 11, or 12 parts, thus producing 
different feet 

There would tlierefore be 60, 66, and 72 ten-ket rods 0/ 
their own respective feet on each side of A A, B B, and c C, or 
600, 660, and 720 respectively (360,000, 435,600, 518,400 
square feet; 40,000, 48400, 57,600 square yards). If we 
now suppose that each of the quarantenes was a virgate 
of 10 acres, they would all be equal in area, though owing 
to the difference of feet there would be a difference in 
the number of ten-feet rods. The statute pole of 11 feet 
(6 X II = 4 X 16^) was designedly meant, I think, to hold a 
middle position between the decimal and duodecimal system 
on either side of it ; and as we are dealing with a time long be- 
fore any statutory declaration on the subject, it is not necessary 
to make further calculations based on the rod of 1 1 statutory 
feet of 304, though that foot is as old as any, and is the founda- 
tion of the equally old rod of 16 feet or cubits. It will be 
noticed that by the addition of J a foot to an old (.?) i6'foot 
rod of 304 mm. to the foot, and with four falls instead of six 
of such a rod, the three acres are brought into unison \yith 
the Statute. 

Dealing now with the lo-foot rod of 334 mm. to the foot, 

VOL. I. s 



258 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

the square leuga would consist of 51,840,000 square feet, or 
5,760,000 square yards ; the square root of this gives 2400 ; 
Six-tenths of this number is the number of acres (1,440) in 
the square leuga with 4,000 square yards to the acre, being 
the Devonshire acre in number=4,840 statute yards: the 
Devonshire acre is the only one that I know of that appears 
to be built up on a decimal rod of '3048 m. to the foot, and 
of 4,000 square statute yards. This rod or gad of 10 statute 
feet was in use in Lincolnshire (2 Stone, 394), and a double 
gad of 20 feet was in use in other places for other purposes. 
The duodecimal rod of 12 statute feet will be shown later on to 
be a really a 16 * foot ' rod of 228 mm. Going next to column 
C (which, I presume, was Anglo-Saxon) and reckoning in its 
foot of 279 mm., and counting in the long hundred, there 
would be 8,640 feet on each side of the leuga, giving a total 
of 74,649,600 square feet, or 8,294400 square yards; the 
square root of this is 2,880 ; ^z/Menths of this number is 
1440, and the number of acres in the square leuga with 5,760 
square yards to the acre. Thus in precisely the same area 
there would be 6 units of 240 or 12 of 120, as against 

5 of 288 or 10 of 144. If, then, taxation was imposed by 
units irrespective of area, in the one case we should have 

6 or 12 geldable units under the one system as against 
5 or 10 under the other. Any statement, then, that a place 
contained 5 units, and was taxed at that rate, might really on 
examination be found to indicate 5^ units in actual area. I 
shall deal with this more fully afterwards, but a partial ex- 
planation is necessary now. 

In the above illustration I have one quarantene or stadium 
to make up one decimal viigate of 10 acres, but of course more 
quarantenes or acres might be taken to make a virgate, such 
virgates being decimal or duodecimal or sexdecimal accord- 
ing to the system followed. This would be done by the 
division of the strip or the quarantene by 8, 10, or 12. We 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 259 

shall also see that the same block of land (being a quarantene) 
divided by 12 gives 12 acres of one size; when divided by 
10, gives 10 acres of a different size; when divided by 13, 
gives 13 acres of a different size ; and when divided by 14, 
gives 14 acres of a different size, these last two cases being 
the course adopted on the adoption of a different foot, but all 
going to prove that the larger unit was not built up from an 
agglomeration of smaller units, but that the smaller unit was 
derived from the particular way in which the larger unit was 
subdivided, such subdivision thus accounting for the ' countrye 
measure ' found in certain places. So, too, the Babylonish 
stadion, or * 2-minute way ' of a stout walker (189 m.), divided 
by 360 (the sun's course) gave to the Babylonians their ell of 
525 millimetres, and their 'quanu* or rod of 6 of such ells 
(3'i 50) divided by 10 gave them the brick of '315 which (see 
Kelly's ' Cambist ') is practically the Rhineland and Scotch foot 
(Hultsch, ' Metrologie ' [Berlin, 1882], pp. 380-391. See also 
pp. 496, 497)> ^nd a square of 12x12 square stadia divided 
by 10 X 10 gives a square of 10 Scotch acres. If the rod was 
duodecimal, or sexdecimal, the quarantene and the larger 
units also would be, i.e. in the duodecimal system 48 decimal 
perticae of cubits, or 12 acres instead of ten, and in the sex- 
decimal 64 decimal perticae, or 16 acres instead of the ten and the 
twelve acres. The Anglo-Saxons reckoned twelve as only ten, 
so the strip C they would divide into 10 plots of 12 acres (E) 
instead of the 12 plots of A of 10 acres (d). By adding two 
more acres to CC it would equal E, and with the other nine 
plots of the strip make up the 10 plots of 12 acres each of 
column C. Treating each of the 1 2 strips of the leuga in the 
same way, the Saxons would get 120 virgates of 12 acres each, 
as against 144 virgates, each of 10 acres ; that is, they would 
have five hides of 288 acres, as against 6 hides of 240. 
In the one system the leuga would be taxed at five pounds, 
and in the other at six pounds. 



26o A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

The Anglo-Saxons would object to being taxed at more 
than 5, and if the objection succeeded, 240 acres would 
clearly be * extra hidam.' J. Michelet, in his ' History of 
France/ Book 2, chap, i., states (without giving his authority) 
that the Saxons refused to join the Lombards because their 
military divisions were in tens and hundreds. The same 
principles would hold good as to taxation founded on caru- 
cates and carucae, and if the Saxon pound of 288 pence 
equalled in weight one Nortnan pound of 240 pence only, 
the reason of the objection is obvious. 

If the whole of the square leuga was arable land in 
single ownership it would be taxed as ten or twelve units, 
but if the arable land when in fallow * lay in common,'/ jacet 
in communi,' then, as we shall see, it was called ' wara/ and 
the taxation would be just one-half if in a two-course and two- 
thirds if in a three-course. So, too, if half of it consisted of 
common silva or pasture, but if such silva or pasture ' lay in 
several,' 'jacet in separali,' it would be subject to taxation, 
and perhaps in some places for subdivision in regard to wood 
and pasture a longer pole would be used as between lords 
and their men ; but I think there can be no question that, as 
regards the larger units, such as leagues and hides, the ropes 
and chains and the perticae were based on some uniform but 
well-founded proportion, decimal, duodecimal, or sexdecimal, 
quite irrespective of the tenacity of soil or the whims and 
wishes of those having control of the measurement It is 
absurd to suppose a league or a mile should be long or 
short according as the soil was stiff or light over which Ihe 
chain was lugged. The further subdivision of the acre for 
practical purposes (as to arable land) must have been made 
on very careful calculations suited to the shape and figure of 
the land within it, so as to secure the proper size of the acre 
fitting in as it does to the larger unit. The stat. 33 Ed. I. 
c. 6, which gives the length of the inch, the foot, the yard. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



261 



and the rod (as we have them now) gives also calculations 
showing the alternative lengths and breadths of an acre, and 
in doing so it gives, no doubt, the proportions of the acre 
which had been in use, whatever the foot was. 

The following is the list. (The statute says that when the 
length of the acre was of the number of perches shown in 
column A, then the breadth was to be that in column B) : — 



Perches 



Length 10 
II 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 

17 
18 

19 
20 
21 
22 

23 
24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 
30 
31 
32 

33 
34 
35 
36 
37 
38 
39 
40 

41 
42 
43 
44 
45 



Perches 



Breadth 16 
I4t 
*3t 

I2f 
IlJ 

loj 

10 

9| 
8} 

H 
8 

7i 
7i 

6 
51 

5i 

5i 

5i 

4: 

4: 

4: 

4 

41 

4: 

4: 

4 

4 

4 

3? 

3' 

3: 



2i 

2 

«i 

2 
O 
O 

2i 

2 
2 

2i 
O 

2\ 

6| 

3 

2 

3 

I 

3 

3 

2 

2 
I 

2 
I 



5 

14 



Perchet 



Length 46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 
53 
54 

11 
% 

59 
60 
61 
62 

63 
64 

65 
66 

67 
68 
69 
70 

71 

72 

73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 



Perches 



Breadth 3^ 

3} 

3i 

3 

3 

3 

3 

2f 

2[ 
2j 
22 



2^ 
2I 
23 
24 



2 

2i 

2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 

2J 

2 
2 






o 

2.5 

I 

o 

3 

i\ 

I 

o 

3 

2i 

2 
I 

i 

3 

'i 

I 

^! 

2 



O 

i\ 
3 

2 

'J 

I 
O 
O 



The former three examples of leugae are cases where the 



262 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



number of acres is exactly the same in the same area, and 

the area of each acre also the same, but with the number of 

square yards differing in each acre. The following, relating 

to the Irish acre, is a case of three separate units covering the 

^tff/f^ area with a different number of acres in one unit, and each 

acre containing a different number of square yards, based on 

the same number of feet in the rod, but with the foot itself 

differing in the rod : — 

8,640 feet of '355 m. 
10,368 ,, -296111. 
10,080 „ '3048 m. 



24 
Irish 
acres 



840 feet 



840 feet 



2,016 feet 



4- 

8-, 

I 

12- 

16- 
20- 
24- 

28- 



I 



25 

local 
acres 



1 2,016 feet 



1,440 acres of 5,760 yards of 355 mm. to foot. 



1,440 „ 7,840 „ 


304 


1,680 „ 6,720 „ 


304 


Ten hides of 144 




= Ten hides of i68 




or 




Twelve hides of 120 




= Twelve hides of 140. 





From A to B and on each side of the unit is a length of 
10,368 feet of 296 mm. (864 duodecimal rods of that foot), 
or 10,080 feet of 304 mm. (720 rods of 14 stat. feet), or 8,640 
feet of 355 mm. to foot (720 duodecimal rods of that foot). 
The above area is therefore either a unit of 1440 acres. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



263 



contained in 12 strips, and each strip of 10 quarantenes, each 
acre consisting of 51,840 feet of 355 mm. (5,760 square yards), 
or a unit of 1,440 acres, also in 12 strips and 10 quaran- 
tenes, each acre consisting of 70,560 statute feet (304 mm.), 
—that is, 7,840 square yards (Irish acre). The quarantene 



4-26 m. B rod of 


12 feet 




Rod of 14 


feet of 304 mm 


of 355 mm. 






(sUtute) = 4 •26 m. 

r 














- I 




-I 










-2 




-2 








I 


3 




-3 










-4 




-4 
















See post^ Appendix, 


p. 384. 




-5 




-5 


Erfort in last table. The rod 
of 14 coincides with the middle 




-6 




-6 


hundred 


in lifeijihL so 


it would 


' 






well fit in to renders 


made in 


5 


-7 






'stones/ 


&c., of 14, 


28, 56, 


6 


-8 




-7 


112, of 


the different 


articles 






rendered 












-8 








7 
8 


-9 
-10 




-9 








9 


-II 




-10 




















IOi-I2 




.„ 








II 


-13 



-12 12-14 

divided by twelve would give the acre, and two quarantenes 
would give a virgate of 24 acres. But by dividing the 
quarantene hy fourteen the length of an acre would be 70 
rods of 12 feet to the rod, and the base 6 rods of 12 statute 
feet of 304 mm. to the rod, and we should have 1,680 acres 
of 6,720 yards of 304 mm. to foot, or 12 ploughlands of 140 
acres each, as in some parts of Ireland (see Carew MSS. at 
Lambeth Palace, vol. 607, p. 125) ; each virgate of 24 Irish 
acres would therefore equal 28 local acres of 'countrye 



264 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

measure.' The above unit of i,68o acres would thus contain 
60 virgates of 28 local acres, or 60 virgates of 24 Irish acres= 
the acres of 5,760 yards based on the foot of -355 mm. 
This is exactly the case of Weston in Huntingdonshire (see 
H.R. vol. ii. foL 629), where the hide is said to contain 168 acres 
of 6 virgates of 28 acres to each. There are ID such hides 
in D. Book taxed at 1,200 + 480 'extra hidam '; and where a 
virgate of 28 acres appears, I have little doubt that it may 
be accounted for in the same way — that is, by dividing the 
original. qusxantene by 14. 

By another diagram of exactly the same area, and built 
upon the decima) rod of the * Royal * foot of '355, divided 
into 12 feet of -296 (=10 feet of '355 m.), it is possible to 
explain the Celtic arrangement in Ireland made by a people 
who divided their money and pole duodecimally. At page 
355 of vol. V. of the Brehon Laws the ' Tircumhail,* or land 
of a female slave (i.e. a virgate), is stated to be composed of 
12 feet to a fertach (pertica ?), 12 fertachs to a forrach (rope), 
and 6 ropes to the breadth of it, with a length stated at page 
276 of vol. iv. to be 12 forrachs : thus a tircumhail would be 
1,728 feet long (two quarantenes, i.e. 2 x 864) by 864 wide, 
and is shown below. A twenty-fourth part of it would be 
an acre : the acre would thus be 72 x 864 feet, and would 
consist of 6,912 square yards, just as the Celtic pound is 
shown to consist of 6,912 grains. The square, when divided 
into strips of ten quarantenes, as in the preceding diagram, 
with a foot of '3048 m., or with a foot of -355 m., would give 
the results as already shown, i.e. 1,440 acres (Irish), or 1,680 
local. The same square, however, being divided into 12 
strips, and each strip into 12, not 10, quarantenes ^ and each 
quarantene into 12 acres^ each strip would consist of 6 tircum- 
hails (or virgates), and be 144 acres of the foot of •296 m., 
or 140, as mentioned below. So there would be in exactly 
the same area 1,728 acres of 6,912 square yards, each of 
•296 m. to the foot, as against 1440 acres of 7,840 square 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



265 



yards (Irish acre) of -3048 m. to foot, or 1,680 of the local 
acres of 'countrye measure/ It will be noticed that by 
dividing the Celtic quarantene of 12 acres by ten instead of 
12 we get the Irish acre of 7,840 statute yards of the foot 
of '3,048 m., i.e. the acre of 5,760 yards of the Royal foot of 
•355 m., and by dividing it by 12 we get the local acre of 
70 X 840 statute feet, which equals the Celtic acre of 72 x 864 
of '296 m. An interesting question remains both in England 
and Ireland, viz. in those places where the acre of 7,840 
statute yards of "3048 m. to the foot appears, who were the 
first in occupation — those who used the foot of '355, or those 
who used the foot of '3048 ? I think that there is little doubt 
that the '355 and the '296 were the first The -296 foot 
is the Swedish and Embden foot. It also appears elsewhere ; 
see Erfurt in Appendix and the cloth ells, p. 384. 

10,080 statute feet. 
8,640 feet of '355 m. 
10,368 „ -296 m. 



1,728 

feet of 

'296m. 



1, 728 



1,728 



1,728 



1,728 



1.738 



A a ' tircum- 
hail,' or land of 
a female slave. 
Total, 1,728 
acresof72x864 
= 6,912 3rards 
of'ai96m. foot, 
72 ' tircum- 
nails ' of 24 
acres, of '296m. 
to foot = 72 
virgates of 20 
Iri^ acres of 
'3,048 m. to 
foot, or 1,440 
Irish acres. 
The tircnmhail 
is evidently 
two quaran- 
tenes, as 'each 
strip consists 
of 12 qtiaran- 



12)864 feet of '296 m. = 720 of '355 m. = 840 sUtute feel. 

12) 72 fertachs See Russia, Appendix, p. 383. The tircnmhail contains exactly 

~~6 forrachs la Russian Dessetina. 



266 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

In the same way, and from the foot of '35o-7m., the 
Welsh acres, or erws, mentioned in the Appendix to Govern- 
ment Report of 1820, are deduced. 
Government Report, p. 26. 
No. 3. The bat, or Eglwshaw, of 9,384 square yards 

= 84,456 sq. feet = 91-9 x 919 statute feet of 

•305 m. 
= 80 X 800 of the foot of 350 m. (see 
Hultsch's ' Metrologie/ 1882, pp. 526-613), 
being the foot of a Babylonish or Egyptian 
sesquipedalis cubit of '525 m. 

1 1,028 statute feet of -305 m. 
9,600 Royal feet of -350 m. 

xa34S 67 8 Q10Z112 



800 



A 919 X 919 of '305 m. = 800 X 800 of *35o m. 
6,400 square rods of 1 1 '49 stat. feet, or 6,400 square decempedal rods of 
*35o m. to foot. One tenth of A is one acre of 640 square rods, i,e, 8 x 80 
rods. 
This acre was the customary acre of the Hundred of Dau-gledden in Pem- 
brokeshire. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



267 



No. 3. Appendix to Government Report, 1820, p. 26. 

The following is an acre out of just the same area as the 
immediately preceding one, and it will be readily seen how 
the different acre is obtained by dividing the square into 10 
strips instead of 1 2. 

P. 26. The acre of 11,261 stat yards (put at page 15 as 
11,284 square yards, 4 x 2,821), but really 11,264 = 101,376 
square feet, i.e. grg x 1,103 stat feet of 305 m. 

11,028 statute feet of 'SOSm. 
9,600 Royal feet of '351111. 



800 



i,aoo acres 



960 

A 919 X 1,103 of '305 ro. = 800 x 960 of '350 m. 

768 square rods of 1 1 '49 stat. feet, or 768 squai'e decempedal rods of '350 m. 
to foot. 

12 quarantenes of 7,680 sq. rods, ^ of a quarantene of 768 square rods of 
3-50 m., is the acre. Perhaps the strip should be divided into 10 quaran- 
tenes of 960 X 960, and one twelfth the acre of 80 x 960. 

This acre was to lie found in Glamorganshire. 



268 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

Appendix to Government Report, p. 26. 

No. 4. 1 1,776 square stat. yards = 105,984 square feet 
divided by 768 (4 x 192) = 138 square feet: 
1175 X 1175 = 138-0625. 
(8 X 1175 =) 94 X -304 m. = 28-57 ni- = 80 
x-357 m. = 28'56m. 

ii,2Sp Stat, feet of '3048 m. 
9,600 Royal feet of -357 m. 



800 



I 






i,20o acres 



960 

Block A 940 X 1,128 of statute feet '304 m. = 800 x 960 of -357 m.; ^ of this 
is the acre iii776 statute jrards. The block would consist of 80 x 96 poles 
« 7,680 square decempedal poles of '35701. to foot, ^^ of which would be 
the acre. Perhaps the strip was divided in 10 quarantenes, and the 12th 
part taken as an acre, as suggested in the last diagram. 
This acre was the customary measure of the North of Glamorganshire, and is 
there called erw ferthyr Tudful-erw uan Vabon, &c. 

The next diagram is one of the same nature, and refers to 
the Lothian and Westmoreland oxgangor bovate of 13 acres, 
though really 12 acres. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



269 



[Note. — In RhineUnd, &c., many places have a ' common' foot of '282-9 m., 
as well as the Babylonish and Scotch measure of '313-6. See each place in the 
text of Kelly's ' Cambist ' ; note also the cloth ells.] 

8,640 feet of '314 m. to foot (Scotch and Lindau Rhineland foot). 
9*360 ,, '289 m. „ (Lindau common foot). 





t 1 




c 


D 






- 


(Not Strictly drawn to scale : five 


1 


rows of three ploughgates) 


I 


There are 15 ploughgates in this area, 


1 
1 


viz, „ „ of 96 acres of -314 foot 


1 


= „ „ of 104 „ '289 „ 




Area, 1,440 acres of 5,760 yards of '314m. to foot 


1 

1 
1 


= 1,560 „ 6,240 „ •289m. „ 



From A to B and on each side of the above diagram is 
8,640 feet of 314 mm. to foot, or 9,360 feet of 289 mm., 
that is 720 duodecimal rods of 314 mm., or 780 rods of 
12 feet of 289 mm. The area therefore contains, reckoning 
in duodecimal rods (the leuga being divided into 12 strips, 
the strip into 10 quarantenes, and the quarantene into 12 
acres), 1440 acres of 5,760 square yards of feet of 314 mm. 
to the foot. But by still keeping to duodecimal rods, and 
by dividing the quarantene by thirteen instead of twelve, an 



270 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

acre would be produced with the length of it as of 65 rods of 
12 feet of 289 mm. to the foot, and the base of it as of 6 rods 
of 12 feet of the like foot, and we get 1,560 local acres of 

* countrye measure ' of 6,240 square yards of feet of 289 mm., 
and thus there would be 1 5 ploughgates, each of 8 oxgates, 
each of 13 acres of 6,240 yards. Both of these feet are used 
at Lindau, the latter being called the 'common foot,' and 
the 314 mm. the long foot (as to which see Hultsch's * Metro- 
logie,' 1882, pp. 390, 496, &c.). The foot of -315 m. was the 
tenth part of a rod of 6 Babylonish ells of ^525 m. ; 6 x 525 
= 3*1 50 (Hultsch, 390). The old common foot was adopted by 
the ancient Scotch declaratory stat. to be found in the * Frag- 
menta collecta ' at the end of the first vol. of Scotch statutes 
in these words : * Perticata terrae in baronia debet mensurari 
per sex ulnas qux faciunt xvill pedes mediocres, hoc est 
neque de majoribus neque de minoribus ; perticata terrae in 
burgo continent viginti pedes mediocres/ Four rods of 18 
feet = six of 12 feet C represents an oxgang of 13 acres 
of 6,240 square yards of 289 mm. to foot, or 12 acres of 
5,760 square yards of 314 mm. to foot. D represents a 

* ploughgate * of 8 oxgangs. This arrangement of measure- 
ment was made in very ancient times, as appears from the 
same statute (Scotch), vol. i. p. 387 : * In the first time that 
the law was maid and ordanit they began at the fredome 
of halikerk, and syne at the mesuring of landis the plewland 
thai ordanit to contene Vlii oxingang and the oxgang shall 
contene Xill akeris.' It was a compromise, in fact, between 
the rod of the foot 3 14 mm. to the foot and the rod of 289 to 
the foot. 

The Westmoreland units of oxgangs and acres can be 
equally well illustrated by the last diagram. We know what 
the Westmoreland acre is, viz. 6,760 square yards ; this gives 
a duodecimal rod of 12 feet of 330 mm., or a rod divided 
into thirteen feet of 304 mm. to the foot, the base being 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 271 

72 of the one foot or 78 of the other, and the calculation as 
above. 

We have not many opportunities given to us by ancient 
MSS. in Great Britain of ascertaining the details of these 
larger units, or the way in which they were built up, but I 
can give three instances in which it is possible to do so, one 
being that of Battle Abbey in Sussex, another in South 
Wales, and the last in North Wales. 

The MS. (Cott Domitian A ii. folio 14) says, * The Church 
of Battle liolds arouni itself one leuga' (it then gives the 
locality of the several virgates, &c., and continues) : * Total 
six hides and half a virgate* (hide ?). * All these lands are 
within the leuga, as it is saidy and of these tlie leuga itself is 
composed^ which the Church of Battle possesses^ which also King 
William freed from every land custom and service^ and from 
every subjection to t/ie Bishops^ and more especially the Bishop 
of Chichester, &cJ * Eight virgates then make one hide, but 
a wista is contained in 4 virgates ; but t/ie Anglican leuga 
(i.e. in length) is made up of 12 quarantenes, and a quarantene 
of 40 pertiae. A pertica lias of length i6 feet. An acre has in 
length 40 perticce, and 4 in breadth, but if it should have 20 
in length, then it shall have 8 in width, and so on* In 
passing, it is worth observing that the word * wista * probably 
is the same as the Welsh or British word * guesta,* meaning 
the amount of food or money in lieu of it, &c., payable to the 
lord of the manor ; if this is so, then 4 out of the 8 virgates 
in the Battle Abbey hide paid it ; in other words, supposing 
the hide to be in a two-course shift, like the Roman jugerum 
(2 acti), all the taxation for the year would be placed on 
sown land. See more fully as to this, post. These virgates 
and hides belonging to Battle Abbey in D. Book are shown 
under different villae or manors, Bece, Wasingate, Wilminte, 
Nirefield, Peneherst, Hov, Pilesham, Cedesfield, Bollintun, 
Croherst, Witinger, and Holnitun, and there is nothing to 



272 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

lead us to suspect that these several manors when collected 
together make one square league. The Cottonian MS., 
however, lets us behind the scenes, and I have little doubt 
that the greater part of England might be regrouped into 
the original rectangular plots, as suggested by me {ante), 
had we only the materials for doing so, as we have in r^^rd 
to Battle Abbey. Compare the interesting map of Wymond- 
ley in Mr. Seebohm's * The English Village Community,' 
p. 432, without the triangle at the junction of Graveley, 
Wymondley, and Baldock. 



Cottonian MS, Domitian A. II. folio 14; Domesday 
Book, Vol. I. fol. 17 *. 

Leuga at Battle Abbey, 
6 hides of 240 acres 48 virgates. 





15x64 

A 960 feet. 7,680 feet A to b. 


D 


2 X 

640 = 


'5 
I virgate 






1,280 

feet 


30 acres 
15 






A to C 


4 virgates = 120 acres 
I wista 








I hide 240 acres 


96 plots of 15 
acres each 
of 64x640 
in the sq. 
leuga. 8 
x 15 = 
120. 



















Hide»of wara^ i.e. fallow not taxed. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 273 

I have first of all assumed that the above is an Anglican 
square league: the acre being 4 falls of 16 feet into 40 
falls, the total area is 40,960 square feet ; 7,680 squared is 
58,982,400 square feet, this divided by 40,960 gives 1,440 
acres to the square leuga of Battle Abbey ; 240 acres to each 
of the 6 hides, and 30 to each virgate, and 4 virgates to each 
wista ; the pole is stated to be 16 feet, but as the MS. speaks 
of the English league of 12 quarantenes, and if it really 
was an ' English league,' it will be found that each of the 
12 quarantenes of 640 x 640 would contain ten acres : a rod 
of 16 Rhineland feet = 16J of -3048 — that is, the statute 
rod 

In Domesday (vol. i. fol. 17 b) the entry in regard to this 
leuga is this: — ^'Ipse Abbas habet in sua rapo VI hidas et 
dimidiam. Hanc terram pro VI hidis se defendit et dimidia 
fuit quieta quia f oris rapum^ 

We seem thus to understand that the league was measured 
with a rope, and that perhaps the rapum was another name 
for the league. 

The measurements were not strictly in the sexdecimal 
system, which obtains in conjunction with 6 falls of the pole 
of 16 feet, or 4 of 16 cubits^ caused by dividing the big unit 
as well as the quarantenes by eight, or the halves of those 
quantities. Supposing the acre to have been built up of 3 x 30 
falls of 16 feet, there would have been 10 hides or units of 256 
acres, of 2,560 square yards to the acre, in the above square 
leuga, and if the acre had been built up of 6 x 60 falls of 16 
feet there would have been 2\ hides of 256, or 5 of 128 
Cheshire and Lancashire acres of 10,240 square yards, with 
virgates of 16 or 32 acres ; and from the singular way in which 
allusion is made to an English leuga, and from the statement 
that that consisted of 12 quarantenes (a statement which 
certainly would be unnecessary if this Battle Abbey had 
always been set out on English lines), I think it most prob- 

VOL. I. T 



274 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



able that one or other of these combinations originally built 
up this league, and that it was fitted in by simply reducing 
the number of falls from 6 to 4 of 16 feet, 

I have shown the combination of 5 hides of Cheshire acres 
of 10,240 square yards to acre of 128 to the hide in this 
diagram. 

Sexdecimal. 
B 7680 feet. 



768 



960 

A 



This acre of 10,240 square stat. yards is to 
be found not only in Cheshire, Westmoreland, 
Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Ire- 
land, but it is the customary acre of Dewisland, 
Kenmaes, and Kilgaron in Pembrokeshire, 
the south of Cardiganshire, parts of Carmar- 
thenshire and Glamorganshire. In the latter 
it is called *• Erw llan Giwg.' Four of these 
blocks together make one souare of 10 hides 
of 256 such acres each, or 20 hides of 12S. 

The Genevan foot* is '4876 m. (sixteen 
tenths of 3048). A stadium or quarantene of 
600 of these feet would equal 960 statute feet, 
and a 1 6-foot rod of statute = a decempcdal 
rod of '4876 m. Can it be that this last foot 
is the real foundation of the Cheshire, &c., 
acre? See p. 288. 



A league of feet=a mile of cubits. The diagram (not 
strictly drawn to scale) represents the same area as the pre- 
vious one, and consists of eight strips like BB, and of 5 hides 
of 128 Cheshire acres of 10,240 square yards to the acre, Le. 
92,160 square feet or 2^ hides of 256 of the like acres. The 
strip BB consists of 10 quarantenes ; the eighth part of such a 
quarantene is an acre. Strip BB, therefore, consists of five 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 275 

virgates of 16 Cheshire acres of 96 x 960 feet. There would 
be 80 of such acres altogether in each strip (8 x 10) ; so 
there would be 8 x 80 s 640 acres altogether — that is, 5 of 
128, or 2i of 256. By dividing the leuga into 12 strips, 
and each strip into 8 quarantenes the fifteenth part of which 
would be an acre, or into 12 quarantenes the tenth part of 
which would be the acre, and thus simply reducing the 
number of falls of the pole from 6 to 4 as to feet, and to 
2f if of cubits, we get an acre of 40,960 square feet, and, 
as shown in the preceding diagram, 1,440 of them in the 
square leuga, which would fit in with 6 pounds of 15 oz. of 
16 pence of 32 wheat grains already referred to, being 
Ethelred's pound=i2 oz. of 20 pence of 32 wheat grains, 
i.e. 7,680 wheat grains. 

South Wales. 

Venedotian Code, Book IL chapter xvii. s. 2. 'After that 
Howel the Good enacted new laws, and abrogated those of 
Dynval ; yet Howel did not^ however^ alter the measuremetits 
of the lands in this island^ but continued them as they were left 
by Dynval: because he was the best measurer^ 

S. 5. ^And that measure Dynval measured by a barleycorn ; 
three lengths of a barleycorn in the inch ; three inches in the 
palm-breadth ; thru palm-breadths in the foot ; three feet in 
the pace; three paces in the leap; three leaps in a land {the 
land in modern Welsh is called a ridge) ; and a thousand of 
the lands is a mile' 

(Note. — This 'foot' is proved, post, to be -2286 m., the 
statute foot being -3048 m. ; an 18-foot rod of stat feet 
would therefore equal 2 rods of the *foot' of ^228 m. with 12 
feet to the rod ; or two rods or ' Uathen gyfelin ' or ' gads ' of 
nine statute feet each.) 

Gwentian Code, Book 11. chapter xxxiii. s. 2. * There are 



I 



276 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

eighteen feet in the rod of Howel the Good ; and e^hteen 
such rods are to be the length of the erw, and two rods in 
breadth.' 

S. 3. * Three hundred and twelve erws, accordir^ to that, 
are to be in the randir, between clear and brake, wood and 
field, and wet and dry ; .except a supemumeraiy trev the 
upland has in addition.' 

S. 4. ' There are to be thirteen trevs in each maenol, and 
the thirteenth of these is the supernumerary trev.' 

S. 5. * In each free trev with office and free trev without 
office there are four randirs ; three for occupancy, and the 
fourth pasturage for the three randirs.' 

The 12 erws over and above the 300 are to be for space 
for buildings, so that the owner might have 300 for occu- 
pancy in the way of arable, pasture, and fuel wood. (Gwen- 
tian Code, Book II. chap. xx. s. 7.) (See diagram on next 
page.) 

The duodecimal rod of 228 mm. to the foot, or nine feet 
of 304 mm. (statute) is extremely old, and was and is to be 
found all over the country. The Government Report on 
Weights and Measures of 1820 calls it the ' Old English Ell,' 
and speaks of it under the word * Llathen Cyw^Mn ' and ' Pared.' 
In other parts of the country it is called a ' gad ' or ' goad.' A 
friend of mine (Mr. W. C. Little, Assistant Commissioner to 
the Royal Commission on Agriculture) thus speaks of it to me : 
' We always used a staff called a '*gad'' of 9 feet. It was 
nearly rounds and tapered from the middle to each end. The 
measurer took hold in the middle ^ laid it nearly on the ground^ 
rested the point very lightly^ and turned it over. In this way 
a good hand would measure nearly as quickly as an ordinary 
person would walk! Mr, Little speaks of the country border- 
ing on Norfolk and the Isle of Ely. But it was in use all 
over the country, and was the foundation of the Lancashire 
acre of 9,000 sq. statute yards, i.e. 90x900 stat. feet of 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



^n 



J^oU. — 
♦Not 
<lnwn to 
flcale. 



A. length 

of 

3*240 feet 

dedmally 

divided 

into 324 



900 erws, or 3 landirs of land • in occupancy. ' 
3,240 'feet* of 228 mm. ■ 3 x 30 x 36. 



»io 



1080 X 1080 
of the foot of 
'228 m., 100 



erws or squares 
of 11,664 sq. 
feet (36x324) 



An erw of South 
"Wales, 36 feet 
broad, 324 feet 
Iozig,of228mm. 
to the *foot,' 
1,296 yards 
or 729 Stat 
yards. 






t.i.t 40 acres 
of 54x540, or 
160 roods or 
'landt* of 27 



x 270 
*228m. 



of 



Total: 
10,497,600 sq. 
feet of 228mm. 
to the foot - 
1,166,400 sq. 
yards -> 900 
erws or 360 
acres or 1,440 
lands' 



I randir of 
300 erws, each 
of 11,664 sq* 
feet or 1,296 
square yards of 
ihe foot of 
228 mm., or 
729 sUt. yprds 
-B 120 acres of 
54x540 of the 
foot of -228 m, 
or 480 * lands' 



625 of the 
squares A placed 
together make a 
square mile of 
Dynval contain- 
ing loo^ooo 
' lands,' 62,500 
erws or 25,000 
acres. 

If the square of 
3240 X 3240 is 
divided into 12 
strips, each strip 
into 12 quaran- 
tenes and each 
quarantene into 
10 parts, there 
will be 1,440 
'lands' of 27 x 
27a If the 
square is divided 
into 9 strips, each 
strip into 10 qua- 
rantenes and 
each quaraotene 
into 10 erws, 
there will be 
900 erws of 36 



Note, — The measurements as made by Dynval's 
* foot ' of 228 mm. would give 36 to base and 324 
to length ; 3 * llathen gyvehn,' or rods of 9 stat. 
feet s 4 rods of 9 < feet ' of 228 mm., and the base 
and length would be in rods of statute feet, 27 and 
243 respectively, 3 rods x 27 rods. If the erw had 
been in the usual proportion of an acre, i,e, I x 10 
instead of i x 9, the erw would have been 810 stat. 
yards, or one-fourth of the Anglesea acre of 3,240 
SQuare yards statute ; so by adding the fourth randir 
of pasturage, ue, 100 erws to each of the other 3 
randirs, they each become 400 erws, and it will be 
found that each randir contains 120 Anglesea acres 
of 12,960 square statute feet or 30 of an Irish acre of 
108 X 1080 statute feet, or 90 erws of Dynval of 
4,320 statute yards. 



304 mm^ but really 120x1,200 feet of 228 mm., giving 
i6,cxx> sq. yards of that foot (10 falls of 9 feet in the one 
case and 10 falls of a pole of 12 in the other) ; and it was in use 



278 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



in Cornwall, and was the foundation of the unit of 270 acres 
mentioned in Carew's * Cornwall,' p. no, where thirty acres 
made a farthing land, and nine farthings the above-named 
unit, and four of such units a Knight's fee. The above acre 
of 9,000 yards would appear to be deduced from a square of 
12,000 X 12,000 of -228 m. to the foot=9,ooo x 9,000 of 
•3048 m. to the foot Such a square, divided into 10 strips, 
and each strip into 10 quarantenes, and each quarantene into 
10 acres, would give the acre. 



A rectangle of 
a league (7,920 
feet) in length 
& 9 quarantenes 
(5,940 feet) in 
breadth, would 
give the area 
of the knight's 
fee of 1,080 sta- 
tute acres. 






Cornwall. 
Stat feet, 304 mm. 

1,980 



Dynval's * feet,' 228 mm. 
2,640 A 



30 acres 



10 acres 



90 acres 
(statute) 



Total : 270 statute acres 



40 acres 



10 
acres 



160 acres 



o2 



I 



Total : 480 acres of the ' 
foot of 228 mm. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 279 

Now 30 IS not the fourth part of 90, but 40 is the fourth 
part of 160, and perhaps the name of a farthing land still 
remained after the 12-foot rod of 228 mm» was called the 
rod of 9 statute feet. This gad of 9 stat. feet (12 of -228 m.) 
is the foundation ateo of a Cornish acre of 5,760 stat yards, 
8 X 9=72 of 304 mm.=:8 x 12 (i.e. 6 x 16)^96 of 228 mm. 

North Wales. 

Venedotian Code, Book II. chap. xvii. s. 6 : ' And then 
they made the measure of the l^al erw by the barleycorn : 
three lengths of a barleycorn in an inch ; three inches in the 
palm-breadth ; three palm-breadths in the foot ; four feet in 
the short yoke, and eight in the field yoke, and twelve in the 
lateral yoke, and sixteen in the long yoke ; and a rod equal 
in length to that long yoke in the hand of the driver, with 
the middle spike of that long yoke in the other hand of the 
driver, and as far as he can reach with that long rod stretch- 
ing out his arm are the two skirts of the erw, that is to say, 
the breadth of a legal erw ; and thirty of that is the length of 
the erw.' 

{Note. — The breadth of the 4 oxen would be another rod 
of 16 *feet' of 228 mm.= i2 stat feet; so the base of the 
erw would be 3 x 16, and the length 30 x [6=48 x 480 of a 
* foot ' of 228 mm.) 

S. 7. * Four such erws are to be in every tydden.^ 

S. 8. • Four tyddens in every randirl 

S. 9. * Four randirs in every gavaeV 

S. 10. * Four gavaels in every trev* 

S. II. *Four trevs in every mcenoV 

S. 12. ^ And twelve nuenols and two' (supernumerary) 
' trevs in every cymwd. And as much as we have said 
above is to be in the other cymwd—that is in number^ five 
score trevs ; and that is the cantrev rightly: ten times ten 
is to be in every hundred ; and numeration goes no further 
than " tefir ' 



28o A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



S. 13. * This is the number of erws in the cantrev : four 
legal erws of tillage in every tydden^ sixteen in every randir ; 
sixty'fourin every gavael; two hundred and fifty-six in the 
trev ; one thousand and twenty-four in every meenol; twelve 
thousand two hundred and eighty-eight in the twelve meenols. 
In the two trevs which pertain to the Court there are to be five 
hundred and twelve erws : the whole of that^ when summed up, 
is twelve thousand and eight hundred erws in the cymwd ; and 
the same number in the other cymwd — that is, the number of 
of erws in the cantrev is twenty-five thousand and six hundred 
— neither more nor less* 

S. 14. ' Cy* the twelve mcenols, which are to be in the 
cymwd, four are assigtud to aillts to support dogs and horses, 
and for progress and dooraeth ; and one for canghellorship ; 
and one other for maership ; and the rest for free uchelwrs^ 

S. 1 5. * And from those eight the King is to have a gwesta 
every year ; that is a pound yearly from each of them.* 

32 trevs or 8 maenols (pound paying anits) a 8,192 erws of Dynval's measure. 
12,288 < feet * of 228 mm. from A to B. 
A 1536 B 



AtOG 

3.840. 



Side, 

15.360 

*fect* of 

228 mm. 



I 
trev 



into 8 parts, would give the 
tydden or Cornish acre of 
96x960 of the 'foot' of 
'228 m., i.e, 72 x 720 of the 
Stat, foot of '3048 m. 

Total, 2,048 ' tyddens,' or Welsh, Conilsh, and Lancashire acres, each of 
92,160 square feet of 228 mm., or 51,840 square statute feet of 3,048 mm., in 
each of the 8 maenols 256 ' tyddens,' &c 



c D E F (2^ maenols) being 
a square with ades 7,680 
(half of 15,360) feet of -228m. 
to foot containing 10 trevs. 
Ten of these squares make 
the 100 trevs which would 
contain 6,400 Cornish^ 
South Wales, or Lancashire 
acres, and are the cantrev of 
25,600 erws as described. 
The square of 10 trevs if 
divided into 8 strips, and 
the strip into 10 quaran- 
tenes, and the quarantene 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



281 



ATrev. 
1,536 feet of 228 mm. 



3.840 

feet of 

228 mm. 

A toe 



tyddcDS 

1 
randir 


A 

I 
gavael 


^ 







A tydden of 4 erws, each 48 < feet ' of 

228 mm. into 480, founded on a rod 

of 16 'feet/ 3x30 falls. 
A tydden equals one of the 

Cornish, S. Wales, West 

Devon, and Lancashire 

acres, i«e. 72 x 720 stat. 

feet. 
The 4 'erws' also are each 

36 X 360 feet of statute 

feet of 304 mm., 3 x 30 

duodecimal rods. 



I trev B 4 gavaels 
,, B 16 randirs 
„ =64 tyddens 
„ B 64 Cornish acres 
„ -B 256 erws 

The trcT is divided into 
4 strips, and each strip 
into 4 quarters, the 4tn 
part of which is the acre 
of 4 erws. 



I 
erw 









Before leaving this part of the subject I should refer to a 
MS. (written in the year 1585 — that is, many centuries after 
the times that I have been speaking of) in Lambeth Palace 
Library, forming part of the Carew MSS. I am indebted to 
Mr. Seebohm for a knowledge of the existence of these 
volumes. This MS. (vol. 607, p. 125) after recording not 



282 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

only the presence of the 'Irish' and 'Cheshire' acres in 
Ireland, but also two other acres, the one founded on a pole 
of 27 statute feet, and the other on a pole of 29 statute feet, 
states (on an interpolated page, and in a different hand) 
under the heading, 'Irish Measure' that a 'quarter' or 
ploughland was measured by the cord or line of 29 feet, 
' which in some pari of the country e is accompted 18 cubits and 
18 inches, and in some other country e 48 cubits and 18 hands 
(every hand to contain 4 inches), every pearche containing 2i 
foot to the pearche.^ As to the cord containing 18 of i cubit 
+ I inch, it will be found that the statute cubit + the statute 
inch, i.e. '456 m. + '025 m. = '481 m., which is the Olympian 
sesquipedalis cubit, giving, therefore, exactly the Olympian 
foot of '320 m. Eighteen of these cubits (or 27 of these feet) 
amount to the length of a cord of 28j^-29 feet statute of 
•304 m. 

As to the perch of 21 feet statute and the cubit (of 
7 hands, by a Stat, of Henry VII L each of 4 inches) of 2"^ 
inches, a cord of 42 statute feet ( = 2 perches of 21) gives 
1 8 of such cubits : 28 x -02 54 m. = 7 11 m. ; the cubit, therefore, 
was bipedalis, and was 2 Royal feet of '355 m., and 2 cords 
each of 18 of such cubits = 2 cords of 42 statute feet, or 4 
perches of 21, which exactly make the base of the common 
Irish acre of 84 statute feet, or 72 Royal feet. All this I have 
already shown in the remarks and diagrams ante, as to the 
Irish acre (see as to the Royal cubit of 7 palms, not hands, 
Hultsch's * Metrologie '). The MS. goes on to speak of the 
different 'countries* in Ireland and the 'cassells of land' 
therein, and states that land measure was by the ploughland 
(note ! not by the acre which is derived from it), and that— 

A cassell of land doth conteine generally in all countiyes alike . 4 plow lande 

A plow land or quarter in some parts of the counrry doth conteine 60 acres 

A plow land or quarter in some parts of the country doth conteine 80 acres 

A plow land or quarter in some parts of the country doth conteine 120 acres 

A plow land or quarter in some parts of the country doth conteine 140 acres 

A plow land or quarter in some parts of the country doth conteine 20 greatc acres 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



283 



I have already shown how the plow land of 140 acres 
arose (at Weston, Hunts), ante^ in the remarks on the Irish 
acre, and I now show in the three following diagrams the other 
plow lands, merely remarking that during the lapse of cen- 
turies fresh divisions of the larger units may possibly have 
been made. 

In an inquisition (/ InquisitionesCancellariae Hiberniae,' ii. 
XXX. iii.) in regard to Fermanagh (anno 1603), the temporal 
land of a barony is described as being divided into bally- 
betaghs or food-paying units ' each containing 4 quarters,' 
each of those containing 4 ' tathes,' and each of the tathes 
containing 30 acres of ' country ' measure. 

A Bailie (?) (of 3 Ballybetaghs) consisting of 12 plough lands seisrichs or quarters. 
10,080 sUtute feet of '3048 m., or 8,640 royal feet of '355 m. 



2ocoTdsof 18 
cubits of 2 
royal feet of 
•35Sm.«72o 



30 

acres 

I 
tate 



I plow 
land 



720 



20 cords of 42 
sutttte feet of 
•03048 m. : 
S40 



10 
acres 

840 



or seisrich 



I Ballybelagh 



B 

I quarter of 

240 acres 

4 X 60 

(double quarters) 

like'Wara' 

Monahan 



Do. 



284 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

In a supposed ancient poem referred to in Dr. Sullivan's 
introduction to O'Cunys 'Manners and Customs of the 
Ancient Irish/ p. xcvi, a bailie or town land is said to consist 
of (2 ploughlands or seisrichs, so it would thus consist of 3 
ballybetaghs. 

This is just the same area (ante) as the diagram relating 
to the tircumhail, so a ' tate ' would seem to be 3 quarantenes 
or i^ tircumhail. 

The bailie (?) is divided into 12 strips, ploughlands, seisrichs, 
or quarters, and each strip into 12 quarantenes of 720 into 
720 feet of the Royal foot of -355 m. = 840 x 840 of the 
statute foot of '3048 m. The measuring in ancient time was 
most probably by six falls of a 12-foot rod of "355 m. to the 
foot, or by 4 falls of a rod of 12 cubits of -532 m. to the cubit. 
B would be a double quarter, or 4 x 60 acres, like a hide of 
wara. In Spenser's * View of the State of Ireland ' the plough- 



2 ' cassells' each of 320 acres (4 x 80), or 640 acres in all. 
7,680 feet of '3048 m. (statate). 

12345678 



960 



10 

acres 

960 



I cassell 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



285 



land in Ulster is said to contain 120 acres after the rate of 
21 Stat, feet to the perch. This measure tallies with the 
above, a 12-foot rod of '355 m. equalling a 14-foot rod of 
'3048 m., as explained ante. 

Another block, B, is divided into 8 strips or ploughlands of 
10 quarantenes ; the tenth part of one of each is the Cheshire 
acre of 96 x 960. There is another acre containing four of 
the Anglesey acres (3,240), so it is 12,960 square yards, and 
is built up on 6 falls of an 18-foot rod of '3048 m. to the foot 
(or double 'gad ') = 4 ^^^^ of ^ I'od of 18 cubits of '456 m. to 
the cubit. 

These acres of 108 x 1,080 and the Cheshire or Welsh acre 
of 10,240 square yards, shown (in the Carew MSS.) also to 
exist in Ireland, are the only acres which appear to suggest 
that the statute foot of '3048 m. existed in old times in Ire- 
land, the acre of 108 statute feet being exactly 6x12 cubits 

2 cassells of 80 * greater ' acres each. 
Total 160 acres. 
4,640 statute feet of '304 m. \ 
4,000 feet of '353 m. [square 
4,800 „ '2942 m. J 



20 cords of 
29 feet of 
-3048 m.-> 
580 



20 cords of 
25 feet of 
•353 m- - 
500 





icassell 






The foot '2942 m. is the 
step foot of -353 m. See 
the Appendix. 


II60 




5a 



1000 



286 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

of -456 (statute cubit), and the 10,240 square yards statute 
(Cheshire acre) being 4 x 16 statute cubits ^128 of DynvaTs 

Welsh feet ofg inches. 

The cassellSjC, are each divided into 2 strips or ploughlands, 
and each strip into 4 quarantenes, one-tenth of each quaran- 
tene is an acre of 1 16 x 1,160 statute feet of "3048 m., or 100 

X 1,000 Irish feet of '353 m., so there would be 20 acres in 
the strip. 

In addition to the above there is the ' Cunningham * acre 
in Ireland, founded on the foot of '317 m. (also in Arabia 
and Japan), being probably the tenth part of a rod of 
6 X '525 m. or 6 Babylonish E^ptian cubits, originally. See 
Appendix, p. 379 et seq. 

Whatever the larger unit was in all the preceding dia- 
grams, the acre seems to be derived from the division of it 
into strips, by 8, 10, or 12, and the size depends, therefore, 
not only upon the size of the foot, but also upon such sub- 
divisions, showing that the acre is derived from the larger 
unit and not the larger unit from the acre. Of course it must 
be understood that as far as regards the ownership of any 
particular acre or virgate, such ownership was (under the 
open-field system) scattered about within the bigger unit, 
and that there might be several ownerships within any one 
particular quarantene, virgate, or acre. Moreover, I can see 
in the old Roman centuriation carried out by the Agrimen- 
sores in straight lines and rectangular divisions, nothing which 
would forbid the use of the open-field system within such divi- 
sions any more than within the rectangular divisions in York- 
shire recorded in Domesday. Nor is there anything in the 
writings of Siculus Flaccus, or Hyginus, when rightly under- 
stood, which would lead us to think otherwise. The material 
point was the division of the bigger units by poles into acres. 
As long as the same pole was used, an acre might be ' dropped 
down * in any place within the bigger unit without reference 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 287 

to its actual position or shape ; for it would always retain the 
same relative proportion to the bigger unit If it conformed to 
conditions like those contained in the Ordinance of Measures 
(said to be 33 Ed. I. c. 6) in part already set out, ante. 

Passing on now to the rods or virgae : these were generally 
divided decimally, duodecimally, or sexdecimally, being rods of 
ten, twelve, or sixteen feet, or sesquipedaUs cubits, thus corre- 
sponding with the three divisions of the libra mentioned before. 

Two virgae might be equal in length, though divided 
differently. Just as the modem Leipsic foot is divided into 
twelve common inches, and also into ten decimal inches, so 
too, in ancient times, a rod of 12 feet of 305 millimetres to 
the foot would equal a rod divided into 16 spans or Welsh 
' feet' of 228 millimetres, and a rod of 10 feet of 335 milli- 
metres to the foot equals the statutory rod of eleven feet of 
305 millimetres (6 x 1 1 = 4 x 16^) on which the statutory 
acre is based, and this again equals a rod of 12 feet of 279 
millimetres; 10 x 335=53-35 = n x 305 = 3-35 = 12 x 279 = 
3'35 ; so it must not be assumed that the ancient rod by 
which the acre in this country was set out was the statutory 
rod of i6i feet, though the resulting size of the acre would be 
the same ; moreover, the calculations of the people using these 
rods would be based (not on the extremely unlikely number 
of 16^, used evidently for the purposes of equalisation), but 
in the one case on the sexdecimal system and in the others 
on the decimal or duodecimal system, according as the divi- 
sions were made decimally or duodecimally. 

From these rods would come also virgae or poles of i^, 
that is 15, 18, or 24, the same containing decimal, duodeci- 
mal, or sexdecimal divisions, representing rods of 10, 12, or 
16 sesquipedaUs cubits instead of feet. There was in actual 
use, as stated above, for measurements a short time ago in 
the Isle of Ely a rod of 9 statute feet (that is, 274 metres 
most probably built up of 1 2 of Dynval's * feet * hereinafter 



I 



288 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

referred to, of 228 millimetres 12 x 228 = 273). This rod 
of 273 metres is called a 'gid/ which is evidently the same 
as the Anglo-Saxon gid or goad ; it coincides in length with 
the old ell used in Wales for measuring frieze (see Govern- 
ment Report, 1820, Appendix, p. 22, voce *Llathen Cyfelin,' 
and ' Fared '), which was also used for measuring land, more- 
over the 'goad' was a measure used in England for the 
measuring of cloth (Kell/s 'Cambist,' voL ii. 285, and 
Government Report, Appendix, p. 18), and is referred to in 
Stat. 28, James I. There would be no difficulty whatever 
in reserving a render or rent of cloth in unison with the 
' gdds ' or Llathen Cyvelin that were used in measuring cloth 
and land. We shall see {post) that the North Wales acre of 
4,320 statute square yards (i.e. 3 erws side by side ; see post) 
is founded on twelve of these * gdds ' or ' Llathen Cyvelin * 
of 273 metres, and the Cornish acre of 5,760 statute square 
yards on eight of them (i.e. 4 of the like erws), and I 
suspect that customary acres in other parts of England are 
built up on the same ' gdd ' or llathen. At Irthlingborough, 
in Northamptonshire (see Britton and Brayley's ' Beauties of 
England and Wales '), there is a stone cross, the shaft of which 
was used for adjusting the rods by which the ' doles ' in the 
parish were measured. The length of this shaft is said to be 
about 13 feet statute. If it was 13^, this would equal li 
'gids*=i8 'feet' of •2286 m. If the shaft is 13, an acre 
built upon it would exactly equal the Westmoreland acre. 
Moreover the English cloth ell of 1*1429 m. is the same as 
the Genevan ell of the like amount, and is^z'^ of these Welsh 
feet of 9 inches ; and 60 Genevan feet of -488 m. = 96 statute 
feet (Cheshire acre), or 128 Dynval's feet of 9 inches, Le. 8 rods 
of 16 of such feet. Six decempedal rods of Geneva there- 
fore = 6 sexdecimal rods of statute feet = 8 sexdecimal rods 
of Dynval's feet, and 266 cloth ells of 1-1429 m. = the breadth 
of the Cheshire quarantene of 10 acres s= 292*608 mm. 
= 1,280 Welsh feet of Dynval of 9 stat. inches each. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



289 



Spans J Palms^ and Feet in miUimttres, Taken from Government 
Returns in Kelly's * Cambist: 





Cagliari 


295 


Augsburg, Cleves, Olenburg, 


228 


Welsh Dynval's* 




Strasburg 


232 


Valentia 


296 


Sweden, Kmbden (Roman) 


242 


Sicily 


297 


Anspach, Cremona, Rome 


243 


Carrara 


300 


Middelburg, Neuchatel, Zii- 


247 


Genoa 




rich, Prague 


248 


Sardinia 


303 


Nuremberg 


261 


Nice 


305 


England (of 6-palm cubit) 


263 


Naples 


307 


Konigsberg 


267 


Revel 


309 


Berlin 


273 


Riga 


3'3 


Rhine, Leyden 


^n 


Cologne 


314 


(Lindau long foot) Scotch 


278 


Heidelberg 


316 


Vienna 


279 


Osnaburg 


317 


Innspruck 


280 


Maestricht 


323 


Turin 


282 


Erfurt, Spain, Stettin, Leipsic 


324 


France 


283 


Amsterdam, Dresden, Macde- 


Z^ 


Lisbon 




burg 


333 


China (mathematical foot) 


284 


Breslau 


334 


Moscow (Drusian foot) 


285 


Antwerp, Brunswick, Haerlem 


340 


Verona 


286 


Hamburg, Wirtemberg, Dant- 


342 


Lyons 




zic, Lorraine, Franldort 


346 


Vicenza 


% 


Li^, Gotha 
Lubeck 


347 

349 


Venice 
Russia 


289 


Aix, Bremen, Mannheim, Mu- 
nich, Ratisbon, Rostock, 


353 


Padua (of 7-palm cubit) 
Bordeaux and Cracow do. 




Ulm (Lindau common foot) 


360 
380 


Dordrecht 
Sienna 


290 


Gottingcn, Hanover, Liine- 


Bologna 




burg, Stralsund, Wismar, 


396 


Milan 




Zell, Mecklenburg 


401 


Ferrara 


291 


Gronlngen 


436 


Bergamo 


292 


Caleml^rg 


464 


Pavm 


293 


Berne 


487 


Geneva 



The statute inch is '0254 m. ; the painty '0762 m. ; the hand^ 

• 1016 m. ; the stat foot^ '3048 m. ; the statute cubit of 6 palms, 
•456 m. ; the * Royal* foot, -355 m., and the Royal cubit of 
7 palms, '532 m. ; and the ^hipedalis' cubit, 710 m. 

I have given above a list of palms, spans, and feet reckoned 
in millimetres (all taken from the second volume of Kelly's 

* Cambist/ at page 244). There is one exception, viz., *Dyn- 
val's Welsh * foot/ already referred to, being really a * span ' of 
228 millimetres. We arrive at a knowledge of the size of this 
from the fact that it is proved to be J of our foot, i.e. 9 statute 

VOL. I. U 



290 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

inches, since the Welsh perch is 9 feet square, 160 of which 
make a stangell, and 4 stangells the erw or Cornish and 
Welsh acre of 5,760 yards (see Appendix to the Government 
Report of 1820 on Weights and Measures, pp. 17 and 26) 
and also from the fact that three roods measured out (as 
described below) with a rod of 16 of these feet or spans 
make the common North Wales acre of 4,320 square statute 
yards (see Government Report, p. 5); the identification is 
therefore complete. Taking -3048 m. to be our English foot 
(see table ante), } of that will be -228 m. It is worthy of re- 
mark that a rod of 16 ' spans * is of a very ancient date : it is 
to be found in No. vi. Tabula Heroniana No. 7, where the rod 
or acena is stated to be 16 spithame or spans (see Hultsch's 

* Metrologicorum Scriptorum Reliquiae,' Leipsic, vol. i,pp. 47 
and 193). This spithame of 3 palms also in ancient times 
was called a * sextans ' and ' dodrans ' (see pp. 13 and 88). Of 
course this * foot ' of 228 mm. is not a natural foot ; it was, 
in fact, a paper * foot ' of Dynval, who is called the ' best 
measurer ' (see ' Venedotian Code,* Book II. chap, xvil s. 2, 
quoted anU\ and all the measures founded on it are stated 
in the Appendix to the Government Report of 1820, vocibus 

* leap,' p. 21, 'pace,' pt 25, ' ridge,' p. 30, ' mile,' p. 24, * Pared,' 
p. 25, ' Llathen Gyfelin,' p. 22, the two latter being each of 
12 of such feet = g statute feet, and the * Paladr ' (p. 25), being 
18 of such feet = 13J statute feet. 

I am much indebted to Mr. Seebohm, the author of ' The 
English Village Community,' not only for the great interest 
he has shown and for help given, but for special information 
in regard to the history, not only of the Drusian foot of 18 
digits (instead of the 16 of the Roman foot of '296 m.), but also 
of the ' Royal ' foot of 355 mm., i.e. the foot of the s^ven-palm 
cubit of -532 m., the statute foot being of the 6 palm cubit of 
•456 m., each cubit being sesquipedalis. It will be seen from 
the list taken from Kelly's 'Cambist' that"^ the Drusian foot 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 291 

is the * mathematical ' foot of China, and is in use at Moscow, 
and that the Royal foot is in use at Padua, Bordeaux, and 
Cracow, as it still is in England, and Ireland, and Wales, 
wherever the acre of 7840 is measured, a twelve-foot rod of 
355 mm. equalling a 14-foot rod of '3048 m., twelve of the seven- 
palm cubits equalling, of course^/ourteen of the siz-palm cubits. 
The size of all these feet, some sixty in number (though 
most interesting from an historical point of view), is only ma- 
terial so far as it may enable us to say what kind of rod 
might have been used in any one particular case : for instance, 
the use of one of these feet might give a rod of 10 feet, while 
the use of another might give a rod of 12 feet, the two rods 
being exactly alike in actual length, but the real fact being 
that in the one case a decimal rod was used, and in the other 
a duodecimal. So, too, as mentioned above, a rod of 16 
spithame, spans, or ' feet ' of 228 millimetres equals a rod of 
12 statute feet of 304; but the actual rod used, as we shall 
see, was one of 16 and not 12. I give now a table show- 
ing the application of these principles to our statute acre and 
other acres to be found in these isles, merely remarking that 
the rod of 16^ of our statute acre is a statutory rod adopted 
perhaps to fit into the various forms of the same acre, as I 
have found cases in which this statutory rod is incorrectly 
stated : for instance, the virgates of the seven manors surveyed 
in the MS. E. M. are all said therein to be measured by the 
rod of 16 feet, and in one of them (i.e. in the survey of West 
Wratting), the virgate is said to be measured * per perticam ut 
statuitur xvi pedum* It must be remembered, however (from 
the forgoing explanation as to Weston in Huntingdonshire 
and the Lothian and Westmoreland acres), that the change 
from one foot to another might be made not only by increas- 
ing the number of feet in the same rod (thus keeping the 
acre of the same size) but (as in the instances above and some 
of those in the Appendix) by dividing the quarantene. Thus 



292 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



In this Table I call square ells and yards 9 square 






A 


B 


Sauare 
elisor 


Do. of 


No. of 


Poles 


1 


Name of aero 


Stat, foot 


another 


yards of 


Bfeet 


roods 


in base 






mitre 


foot 


feet A 




in acre 


of rood 




Statute 


•3048 


— 


4.840 


or 


4 
4 


2 

3 




Idem 


"^ 


•2792 


4.840 


5.760 
or 


4 
4 


2 
3 




Idem 


""• 


•335 


4.840 


4.000 
or 


4 
4 


2 
3 




Idem 


— 


•3138 


4,840 


4.551 


4 


2 




>\estmoreUnd . 


•3048 




6,760 




4 


3 




Cheshire . 


•3048 


— 


10,240 


— 


4 


3 




Welsh Dynval . 


_ 


•228 


4,320 


7.680 


3 


3 




Welsh 


— 


•228 


5.760 


10,240 


4 


3 




Anglesey . 


•3048 


— 


3.240 


— 


3 


3 






or* 


•228 


3.240 


5,760 


3 


3 




Irish .... 


•3048 


_ 


12,960 


_ 


4 


3 




Irish . 


•3048 


— 


7.840 


— 


4 


3 






or 


•355 


— 


5,760 


4 


3 




Scotch 


— 


•3«48 


6.150 


5,760 


4 


2 




Lothian 


— 


•290 


6,150 


6.760 


4 


3 




Merionethshire . 


•3048 


— 


2.430 


— 


3 


3 





the Westmoreland foot is to the statute foot as 12 to 13 ; by 
dividing the quarantene by 13 you get an acre of 72 X768, 
and thirteen of them consisting of 6 x 64 twelve-feet rods of 
'3048 to the foot instead of 12 acres of 6 x 60 twelve-feet rods 
of '330 to the foot, the quarantene is the same, the acre 
different 

While we carefully remember the three divisions of the 
libra, described in the former part of this paper, and also the 
rods or virgae divided into divisions of feet corresponding 
with the decimal, duodecimal, and sexdecimal divisions of 
the libra, let us, in order fully to understand the spirit of the 
Domesday Survey and the principle on which it was based, 
carry our minds to a time some centuries before the date of it, 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 
feet^ whatever that foot may he, statute or otherwise. 



293 





Length of 
baMof 


Do. In 


No. of 


No. of 










feet A 


poles 


feet in 


Name of foot 






metres 


orB 


inbaM 


pole 








20-II 


66 
or 


t 


i6i 
II 


SUtute A 


— 




20-10 


72 
or 




18 
12 


B 


Osnabuig foot 




20*10 


60 

or 




»5 
10 


Dmsian B 


Decimal 




2o*ia 


64 




16 


Rhineland B 


Long foot 




2377 


78 




13 


Statute A 


Or built upon rod of 12 feet 
of 330 mm. 6x12 




29-26 


96 


6 


16 


Statute A 


Also Irish, Welsh, West- 
moreland, Lancashire, York- 
shire, Derbyshire, &c 




3^"!P 


,44 


9 


16 


WebhB 


3 roods side by side 




21-88 


96 


6 


16 


Welsh B 


Also Cornish, &c 




16-45 


54 


6 


9* 


Statute A 


* Most probably a duode- 




I6-4S 


72 


6 


12 


Dynval B 


cimal rod— 1.^. 12 of Dyn- 
vars feet of 228 mm., the 
•LlathenCyvelin'or*Gdd» 




32-87 


108 


6 


18 


Statute A 


4 of Anglesey acres 

Also Welsh and many parts 




25-62 


84 


6 


14 


Statute A 




25.62 


72 


6 


12 




of North of England 




22-66 


72 

or 


4 
6 


18 
12 


LindauB 


Long foot of Lindau 




22*62 


78 


6 


13 


Lindan B 


Common foot of Lindau, or 
built upon a 12-foot rod of 
314 mm. 




247 


81 


9 


9 


SUtnte 


3 roods side by side 



and call back from the past as witnesses all things that can 
help us to understand the model or remodel on which the land 
was set out by those who had the power over it. That time 
was one when the open-field system was in full force, and 
when the land was distributed in plots of acres varying in area 
under the circumstances detailed below, but nevertheless called 
and passing as acres, and lying within some larger unit (such as 
a * leuga'), as before stated. The ownership of the acres did 
not lie together, but was broken up into strips, which were dis- 
tributed either in two fields — indicating a two-course shift — or 

♦ The Anglesea acre founded on the gad of 9 statute feet or 12 feet of 
228 mm. is also to be found in Somersetshire (2 Hone, 917), also in Hampshire 
Charity Report, also in Report to Board of Agriculture in Oxfordshire, p. 152, 
and in Herefordshire, p. 159. 



294 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



(as in after times) in three fields, indicating a three-course shift ; 
the strips, moreover, comprising them were not (as to owner- 
ship) necessarily 'cheek by jowl* with each other, neither 
were they necessarily distinguished by any balk or boundary 
mark between the strips belonging to different owners. These 
strips were not, as a rule, straight or at right angles to the com- 
mon base from which they sprang, nor was such base straight; 
on the contrary, they were generally 'wavy' in character, and 

of the shape shown by an inverted letter S, thus / , as anyone 

who uses his eyes in passing through the grass country of the 
Midland Counties can verj*^ well see. The base line of these 
strips was also irr^[ular, though continuous ; but for the sake 
ot convenience of explanation I assume the form of the acre 
both as to base and side to be rectangular, and I show here 
(though of course not in the proper proportion, on account of 
want of space) a British * Erw ' and a common acre. 



Welsh Erw or unit 

32*940 mMres. 
A B 



Statute Acre. 
20*130 mMres. 



10 '9 

metres. 



201*30 
mitres. 



A B represent the base line on which the measuring rod 
or pole fell, and from which the strips sprang. The length 
of this rod varied, the variation corresponding in most 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 295 

cases with one of the three divisions of the libra or 
pound, or the weights and measures for measuring grain, 
cloth, &c, used by the nation or people measuring, and 
corresponding with the rods and chains with which the 
larger unit of which the acre formed a part was measured ; but 
the subdivisions of the land when once thus measured out into 
acres, were perhaps subdivided into smaller pieces controlled, 
perhaps, by the different character of the ground as to stiff- 
ness of soil, &c. The variation in the size of acre itself, such 
as the statute, the Scotch, Irish, Cheshire, &c, is not to be 
accounted for, as Isidore seems to suppose, by the peculiarity 
of soil : the above acres are too widely spread to be accounted 
for in such a way. If reference is made to the list of vir- 
gates, given below, from every part of England, and which 
contains every original virgate that I can find, it is evident 
that the number of acres in each could not have been, any 
more than the acre itself, controlled by any peculiarity of 
soil, being, as they all are» in the decimal, duodecimal, or 
sexdecimal systems. Moreover, in later times, though a vir- 
gate might be added to, the total acreage must not be taken 
as the original virgate ; thus MS. E. L. states the custumarii 
at Belesham to hold one virgate of 20 acres //«j i or 2 acres 
of * debile dominium,' but the original virgate of 20 acres 
was not changed thereby from 20 to 21 or 22, but remained 
and is recorded as the same. So, too, in MS. P. W. page 60 A, 
the virgate at Herfertun is stated to be ' in quoHbet campo 
decern acrae excepta tertia portione terrae quondam Thomae 
Ruppe cum pertinentiis et portione quondam pasturae redacts 
in culturam.' There are one or two cases in Hunt's H. R. of 
the like kind, which I have noticed in Table i to my Cam- 
bridge paper. The proportion of the base line of any one 
particular acre to the side of it was generally theoretically 
I to 10 or I to 12, according to the system adopted, as 
described ante. The length of the side was, however, subject 



296 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

to departure from this fixity of proportion, and the reason 
and extent of variation is best told in the language of a 
witness contained in the answer of William Carsley of Stret- 
ham, in Cambridgeshire, to an interrogatory put to him in 
the suit in the Exchequer in James I/s reign, filed by Sir 
Miles Sandys, Lord of the Manor of Stretham, against 
Thornton Pauncefoot and other tenants of the said manor. 
* To the ninth interrogatory he, this deponent, saith that it 
is the use and custom within the said manor of Stretham, 
and other manors near adjoining, to measure the fen grounds 
by four pole in breadth for an acre by a pole of i8 feet long 
[i.e. a double gad], which is the usual pole to measure fen 
grounds by, and in length for an acre of the said grounds 
as it happeneth, according to the length of the furlong of the 
same fens, which is sometimes shorter and sometimes longer.' 

I may mention here, in passing, that the fact that there 
were two ways of dealing with the surplusage caused by the 
' Anglicus numerus ' {see post) effectually destroys the force of 
all the arguments for uncertainty in the size of the Domesday 
geldable virgate, founded on passages like the following: 
' Dicunt quod nesciunt quot acrae faciunt virgatam quia 
aliquando quadraginta octo acrae faciunt virgatam et aliquando 
pauciores ' (' Ramsey Chartulary,' voL i. p. 438). This lia- 
bility to variation in length of the sides of acres is probably 
alluded to in an entry in Domesday, otherwise as yet unex- 
plained. (See Domesday, tom. i, fol. 145, * Tenet Episcopus 
Lisiacensis de Episcopo Baiocensi i hidam V pedes minus,' 
meaning perhaps that the furrows were S feet shorter than 
usual.) A variation also might arise from the original virgate 
being added to, as at Belesham and at Herfertun. It is 
necessary also to say that the Stretham quotation above 
alluded to only applies to the marsh and fen grounds, then 
recently drained and allotted out. 

It seems by the * Ordinance of Measures,' 31 Ed. I. (stated 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 297 

anie)^ that the acre need not have been of the ordinary pro- 
portion as to base and length, of 4 x 40, and if that is so it is 
an additional argument against the base of the acre being 
used as a measure of length originally. 

It is to be noted, too, that generally — though the pro- 
portion of I to 10 or 12, as the case might be, was main- 
tained — the base line might be subdivided into more 
than four, or even six, poles by poles of a shorter length, 
as the following quotation from Kennett's ' Parochial Anti- 
quities,' p. 534, will show : ' Quaelibet acra continet duo 
Seliones cum omnibus furlongiis, exceptis virgis et buttis 
quarum quatuor virgae faciunt unam acram et aliquando 
plures. Similiter aliquando quatuor buttes aliquando quinque 
aliquando sex aliquando septem aliquando octo faciunt unam 
acram,' meaning, not the original poles, but shorter poles, 
marking out (within the line first measured off by the four 
long poles) the land into bovates, probably according to the 
stiffness of soil or to suit the convenience of those owning 
one ox ; for instance, a base line of 72 might be subdivided 
into six bovates of 12, or 8 of 9, the base line of 60 into 
8 of 7i, or 6 of 10, the base line of 64 into 8 of 8. The 
subdivisions were often called virgates, while the larger 
divisions into four were called ' plenae virgatae.' The land in 
the Manor of Chatteris, in the Isle of Ely, was, as appears 
on reference to the Cottonian MS. Vespasian E. 2, p. 79, all 
held in the subdivisions of 8 acres. 

Suppose now some centuries before Domesday a British 
tribe or people dividing their land allotted to them out 
of the larger unit. They hold in their hands their virgae 
or rods of a length in some cases corresponding to, or pro- 
portioned to, the amount of the render of food, cloth, &c., 
or to its equivalent in money, thus fitting in with the 
divisions of their pound. ' Quantum enim hereditatis unus- 
quisque possidet tantum dat et census : et quantum census 



298 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

dat, et arat, et secat foenum, et metit seritque ; et puUos dat, 
et lini resticulas. Cum autem debent arare cum virga 
metitur, qua et mansi solent metiri. Et ipsa vii^a signata 
est secundum uniuscujusque rationem et ubicunque signum 
occurrerit, ibi parvum lignum figitur in terra, et ipsi tamen 
in prima scissura et seminatione arant : ' quoted in Ducange, 
voce ' Virga terrae.' The rod-holders measure out a rood of 
2,560 square yards by three falls of a pole of 16 British 
' feet ' of 9 inches on the base line, the rood being thus 
3 poles wide by 30 poles long. The three British 1 6-* foot' 
poles equalling three poles, each in length 12 of our statute 
feet, the 2,560 square yards thus equal 1,440 square statute 
yards. From each pole of 16 feet there would hang as it 
were a strip of 853^ square yards, or 480 if stated in the 
present statutory measure, but 10,240 square British yards 
make one of the Welsh acres, and 2,560 square British yards 
make an * erw,' and three instead of four of these small erws 
make another Welsh acre, viz. that of North Wales of 4,320 
statute yards. 

Now it would be fairly asked. What proof have you of the 
foregoing statements ? 

The proofs are not wanting. If we take the ancient laws 
of Wales (Record Commission 1841, p. 90) and turn to the 
Venedotian Code, Book II. c. xvii., being a manuscript written 
after the year 1080, but containing the ancient laws of Wales, 
said to have been collected and compiled by Howel-dda in or 
about the year 743, we find it recorded that Dyvnmal son of 
Clydno measured the whole of Great Britain ^before tlie Crown 
of London and supremacy of this island was seized by the Saxons] 
and that he made the measure of the legal ' erw ' or British unit 
thus : 'three lengfths of a barleycorn in an inch ; three inches in 
the palm ; three palm-breadths in the foot ; four feet in the short 
yoke, and eight in the field yoke, and twelve in the lateral yoke, 
and sixteen in the long yoke, and a rod equal in length to that 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 299 

long yoke in the hand of the driver, with the middle spike of 
that long yoke in the other hand of the driver, and as far as he 
can reach with that rod stretching out his arm are the two skirts 
of the erw, that is to say, the breadth of a legal erw ; and thirty 
of that is the length of the erw/ Three palms made one 
spithanie or span in Heron's table, referred to above ; so this 
rod was really 12 feet of 305 millimetres divided sexdeci- 
mally into 16 British 'feet' or spans of 228 mm. The 
breadth of the erw, was therefore (taking the stretching out of 
the arms and body of the ploughman on each side of the 
centre of the furrow as i rod — i.e. the breadth, in fact, of 4 
oxen [12 statute feet]) 3 rods of 16 *feet' or spithame of 9 
inches to the foot (so called, but really 3 palms of 3 inches 
each), and 30 times a rod was its length. I have shown 
the shape of it ante under the term ' the Welsh erw,' and 
the size was 48 x 480 (30 x 16) = 2,560 British square 
yards. It will be observed that, whatever the foot was, there 
were sixteen of it in the rod (i.e. the rod was sexdecimal), 
and that 256 is the precise number of pence in the pound 
of 16 ounces named in Ina's 'ransom,' ante\ there would 
therefore be (each erw representing a farthing) one farthing 
or 1024th part of the pound to the base line, one farthing 
to the 'erw,' and 256 farthings to the 'trev,' and 256 pence 
to the 'maenol,' i.e. the pound-paying unit. I have, of 
course, no evidence to show that there were actual British 
coins of these amounts, but the pound or 'weight' 'in 
account ' was thus divided ; it coincides as we see with the 
division of the acre and the pound-paying unit, viz. the 
' maenol,' and the former having been stated by Howel-dda 
as pre-Saxon, I conclude the division of the * weight ' was used 
by the British as the erw certainly was. It possibly might 
be Scandinavian, but pre-Saxon. If we group four of these 
'erws' together for the purpose of forming an acre, the 
following diagram represents the whole acre. 




300 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



21*960 mMres, 
72 Stat. feet. 



219*60 

metres, 
720 SUt. 
feet. 



Breadth, 288 palms, or 72 Statute 
feet ; length, 2,880 palms, or 720 
Statute feet : breadth, 6 rods of 
48 palms, or 4 of 18 Statute feet ; 
length, 60 rods of 48 palms, or 
40 rods of 18 feet Total — 10,240 
square yards, or 5,760 Statute 
yards. The * foot ' or span » 228 
mm., being } of 304 mm. or Sta- 
tute foot. Welsh, Cornish, and 
Lancashire Acre. 



Such was one of the British acres and pounds in Great 
Britain before * the Crown of London and the supremacy of 
this island was seized by the Saxons.' The British acre thus 
constituted represents 10,240 yards, and is the Cornish acre 
and erw of South Wales, which are 5,760 square statute 
yards; thus 2,880 x 288 palms of three inches = 720 x 72 
statute feet = 5,760 statute yards. If three of these Celtic 
*erws' are taken they make up 4,320 square statute yards, 
which is one of the *erws' of North Wales. So, too, in 
Wiltshire, 3 roods, and not 4, make an acre. In the same way 
the Cheshire and Staffordshire acres are built up of poles of 
16 Stat, feet to the pole, and give 10,240 yards to the acre, 
and are the acres of the Manors * inter Ripam ' contained in 
the table, ante. 

The Anglo-Saxon *hida* or *carucate,* the Welsh 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 301 

'mxnol/ and the Irish ' baillebiatagh/ were the units into 
which the land was grouped for the purpose of paying one 
pound's worth, be it of silver or food. The English pound- 
paying * hide ' was originally subdivided into four ' terrae/ and 
each terra into two virgates, or perhaps four, when the land 
was * wara,' and therefore double in amount, the Welsh maenol 
into four ' trevs ' and each trev into four tyddens, with a ' gavael ' 
of 16 acres or 64 'erws,' the Irish * ballibiatagh ' into four 
'quarters,' and each quarter into four 'balliboes,' in some 
places called ' tates.' The hide was sometimes called by a 
name that indicated some common interest or bond between 
the persons holding it ; thus, at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, 
there was the Dogen hida, the Lufan hida, and the Danes 
hida. (SeeMS.L.E.) 

Taking the pound-paying Welsh unit called the maenol 
and turning to the * Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales,' 
Record Commission, 1841, page 90-1, we find that each 
'maenol' contained 1,024 'erws.' As the 'maenol' was the 
pound-paying unit, each * erw ' would pay one farthing if the 
pound consisted of 256 pence, the very number we found 
the Mercian pound of account to contain, the four ' trevs ' of 
the ' maenol ' would each consist of 256 erws, and each pay 
256 farthings, i.e. 64 Mercian pence of account, of 30 wheat 
grains to the penny, i.e. 60 (three score) Frank or Norman 
pence ; each 'gavael' would consist of 64 'erws,' and would 
pay one aolidus or ounce of i6 Mercian pence, or of 15 Frank 
and Norman pence, each 'randir' would consist of four 
tyddens of 16 * erws,' each of which would pay one Mercian 
penny of 30 grains, and each ' erw * of the four which com- 
posed the ' tydden ' would pay one farthing. The composi- 
tion of the maenol is shown thus : — 



302 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

I erw = ^. 

4 erws » I tydden » i</. » I Cornish and Welsh acre. 
i6 erws * i randir ■■ 4^/. 
64erw8Bi gayail » i6</. 

(Threescore Norman pence of 
32 wheat grains or 24 Troy 
grains. 
1,024 erws B I maenol « 256^. ^ i pound of silver, of 16 ' one denarioruin. ' 

At page 91 * Ancient Laws, &c.' S. 15, written in the 13th 
century, long after * the Crown of London and the supremacy 
of this island was seized by the Saxons/ and the pound of 256 
pence had ceased to be, we read (in language suited to the 
money of that day) * three score pence is charged on each 
" trev " of the four that are in a masnol, and so subdivided 
into quarters in succession until each " erw " of the tydden be 
assessed ; ' therefore there is no erw in the tydden free from 
taxation. 

Referring back to the composition of the Mercian pound, 
we find that 256 pence of 30 wheat grains equal 240 Norman 
or Frank pence, each of 24 Troy grains, or 32 wheat grains ; 
so the 64 pence are rightly called three score pence of the 
Frank pound of 240. We have, and I have fully set out 
ante (in a table in a former part of this paper), the for- 
tunately preserved account of precisely the same arrange- 
ment of acres and pence in D. Bk. itself contained in a recital 
(referring to the time of Edward the Confessor) relating to 
the land ' inter Ripam,' where the acre itself was 10,240 stat. 
yards founded on 6 poles of 16 stat. feet, the hide or pound- 
paying unit 256 acres, and the 'valet' in some manors stated 
in Norman money, and in others in the old Mercian money ; 
showing how the 60 pence or three score in some manors 
would in others appear as 64 — in other words, the money of 
the day in the money which was fast dying out. 

But the most interesting fact remains that in many places 
in England we find, in old manuscripts, hides that consist of 
128 or 256 acres, and a virgate of land stated to be 16 or 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 303 

32 acres ; and when so, and if I am right in the supposition 
that the Welsh MS. speaks the truth in asserting that this 
sexdecimal system was in force ' before the Crown of London 
and the supremacy of this island was seized by the Saxons/ 
there is the greatest probability that the population was not 
disturbed by the Anglo-Saxons, and that the old grouping 
into the pound-paying unit of '256 acres was not varied even 
after the division of the pound into 256 pence had ceased* 
If it could be ascertained, therefore, from old manuscripts 
what places had a virgate of 32 or 16, or bovates of 8, and a 
map made showing such places, it would, I am sure (always 
assuming the truth of the MS.), give us a pretty accurate 
estimate of how far the old population was displaced, who- 
ever they were. 

The Romans certainly did nothing much in that direction, 
as the British ' foot ' of 9 statute inches is not the Roman 
foot of 296 mm. On the contrary, as that foot of '296 m. would 
make a duodecimal rod of 3*S5m., which is the decimal rod of 
the Royal foot of -355 m., on which the widely prevailing Irish 
acre of 7,840 yards is founded, it seems to show also that the 
people, whoever they were, who used this foot, also were not 
disturbed either by the Romans or by the Anglo-Saxons in 
those places where it appears in England. There is a vir- 
gate of 48 very prevalent in Gloucestershire ; this may be 
a grouping by the Anglo-Saxons of acres into 24 in each 
of the two fields, but it is equally likely to be a grouping 
of 3 virgates of 16; in that event the population could not 
have been much disturbed there. Again, at Aylington or 
Adelintune in Huntingdonshire (H. R. 656), there is in the 
land of the Mibere tenentes' a grouping of three plots 
of 16 acres each together, making 48 in all, though the 
virgate is stated to be 24. But, however this may be, there 
can be no mistake about a virgate of 16 acres that is one 
standing out per se^ and must represent the original ' gavael ' 



304 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

or virgate of the old units of 256 and 128 acres. Such was 
the virgate at Chatteris in the Isle of Ely, Cottonian MSS. 
Vespasian E. 11 fol. 660 ; at Broctune in Huntingdonshire, 
H. R. 600, and R. C. 335 ; Harrington, Cambs., 2 H. R. 560; 
Long Stanton, 2 H. R. 468 ; St. Ives, Hunts., R. C, vol. i. 
p. 282 ; Colne, 2 H. R. 605 ; Thorpe, in Norfolk, L. E., and 
so on, and in the other places mentioned in my list of vir- 
gates, post Moreover, at Chatteris (* Ramsey Chartulary/ 
p. 431) the tenants (line 12) are said, 'reddere ad marcam 
quatuor denarios * (not, as in other manors, ' dant hydagium ) 
and the mark of gold or Mercian mark was, as we have seen, 
divided into sexdecimal divisions. 

We have taken as an illustration the proceedings of a British 
tribe. The same principles guided the practice of all the 
other peoples in these islands, and probably they are of a 
very remote origin. Any question as to the foot and the 
actual size of the acre in comparison with our standard 
measures is immaterial in this discussion (though the statute 
acre and the statute foot enable us to gauge the size of any 
particular acre or rod) ; it is the number of the poles on the 
base line that built up the acre, the number of feet that formed 
the rod, the number of pennies that formed the pound, and the 
number of acres that formed the pound-paying unit of assess- 
ment, that are absolutely essential to the true understanding 
of Domesday. Taking an acre of the ordinary proportions, 
i.e. 4 X 40 poles, the fall four times on the base line of a pole 
of 18 feet of 279 mm., would give an acre of 4,840 stat square 
yards, and a penny of 288 to the pound, and represents the 
Anglo-Saxon acre of 5,760 yards, and pound of 288 pence. 
The fall of four times of a pole of 15 feet of 335 mm. also 
gives the stat. acre of 4,840 yards, and a penny of 240 to the 
pound, of 24 grains to the penny, like the Norman and 
Frank pound and acre, with the penny in duodecimals (instead 
of decimals) like the Anglo-Saxon. A fall of six times of a 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 305 

pole of 16 'feet' or spans of 228 mm. gives the Cornish acre 
and an • erw ' of South Wales, with 256 pence to the pound 
with 30 wheat grains to the penny, and 10,240 square British 
yards and 5,760 square statute yards to the acre. A fall of six 
times of a pole of 16 feet gives the Cheshire and Stafford- 
shire acre, with 10,240 statute yards to the acre. It is to be 
noticed that in the Cheshire acre the base is 96 feet, Le. six 
times the length of the rod of 16 statute feet of 305 mm. It 
is thus perfectly immaterial as to the size of the feet so long 
as we know the number of feet, whatever they were, that went 
to the pole, and the number of poles that went to the base 
line ; so, too, we do not want to know the size of the penny or 
acre so long as we know the number of pennies that went to 
the pound and the number of acres that went to the pound- 
paying unit, just as it would be immaterial to us, in a matter 
of account, whether pennies were fat and heavy like those of 
George the Third, or thin and light like those of Queen Vic- 
toria ; they both now, as before, pass as pennies, and an acre 
now passes as an acre did before in ancient times, whatever 
it was. 

There are, however, two virgae or poles not coinciding with 
any pounds that I am aware of, though there were certainly 
virgates or groups of acres corresponding with them. I 
mean the poles of 14 and 13 feet. First as to the pole of 14. 
At Weston, in Huntingdonshire, the virgate is 28 acres or 14 
acres in each field ; this would give (proceeding by analogy 
to the other cases) 14 feet to the pole, and so it was in fact — 
14 of '3048 m. {see ante), which equal 12 of '355 m. Six poles 
of 14 statutory feet, i.e. 305 mm., and which is as old as any 
other foot, make the Irish acre. I have never heard of the Irish 
acre in Huntingdonshire, though it is found in Wales and 
certain counties in England ; but, however that may be, the 
tax-paying unit at Weston is said in the R.C. to be 4 virgates 
of 28 acres or H2 acres, i.e. 14 acres in each field, or if of 

VOL. I. X 




3o6 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

* wara * (i.e. fallow not taxed) 8 virgates i.e. 28 acres in each 
field. In the H.R., however, of later date than the R.C., 
the area of the tax-paying unit is put at 6 virgates of 28. 
The unit of 112 acres and virgate of 28 obviously fits in with 
the 'middle' hundred of 112 ; but I have in a diagram of a 
leuga, ante, in regard to the Irish acre, shown how this acre 
may be really derived from and be founded on a 12-foot rod 
of 355 mm., and be in fact of the duodecimal system origin- 
ally. I have also shown how this virgate of 28 local acres of 
6,720 square statute yards equals 24 Irish acres of 7,840 stat 
yards = 24 acres of 5760 yards of the foot of '355 hl The 
hide of 'wara' (i.e. the fallow untaxed) therefore would be (if 
of 112 acres) originally 224 acres, and on reference to the 
H. R, it will be found that there was even at that time one 
group of 224 acres held by 8 men, i.e. 28 acres to each. 
The pound-paying unit of 224 acres in a two-course is 
2x56 + 2x56; the pound-paying unit in a three-course would 
be 2 X 56 + 56 ; so it is possible that the manor might have 
gone into a three-course in the interval of time between the 
two MSS. Six poles of 13 slalutory feet of 305 mm. give the 
6,760 square yards of the acre in the North of England known 
as the Westmoreland acre. From it comes the tax-paying unit 
or carucate of 104 acres (or if of wara of 208 acres) with the 
virgate of 13 acres mentioned in the Black Book of Hexham. 
I have shown ante hovf this, too, is really founded on the duo- 
decimal system, i.e. on a duodecimal rod of '330 m. to the foot. 
Six poles of 1 3 feet of 289 mm. = 6 poles of 12 feet of 3 14 mm. 
to the foot gives the Scottish acre of 6,150 statutoiy English 
square yards. In the Anglic Lothian the land was divided 
into carucates, husband lands, and bovates or oxgangs ; two of 
the latter of 13 acres each formed a husband land, and 4 of the 
latter a carucate, which therefore contained 104 acres (see 
Skene's ' Celtic Scotland,' voL iii. p. 223). The foot of 314 mm., 
it will be seen in the list of feet given in Kelly's ' Cam- 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 307 

bist/ is one of the feet at Lindau (in fact the Rhineland foot), 
but side by side with it is the foot of 289, a rod of 13 of the 
latter equalUng a rod of 12 of the former. At Lindau both 
feet are in use, the foot of 289 mm. being called the * com- 
mon foot' and that of 314mm. being called the * long foot,' 
and at Amsterdam there are the rod of 13 and the rod of 12 
side by side with each other. I think, therefore, there is good 
ground for supposing that the Lothian acre is founded 
originally on the pole of 13 feet of 289 mm., equalling as it 
does the pole of 12 feet of 314 mm. ; and I have shown how 
by using a duodecimal rod of '289 m. to the foot 13 acres of 
6,240 square yards of that foot equal 12 acres of 5,760 
yards of the foot of •314m. This 'common foot' seems 
to have been finally adopted, with 12 of them to the 
rod (see ' Fragmenta Collecta,' Scotch Statutes, vol. i. 387), 
but the 13 acres were still retained (see diagram, ante) in the 
oxgang. In a decree in the Scottish Exchequer, 1585 (ac- 
cording to Robertson, 'Historical Essays,' p. 136), it is laid 
down that 'thirteen acres extendis and sail extend to ane 
oxgait of land, and four oxgait extendis and sail extend to 
ane pund land of auld extent' What this ' pund ' consisted 
of I do not know, but in the West of Scotland the tax-paying 
unit was the Tirung or ounce land, and each Tirung con- 
tained twenty penny lands. 

All the vitiates in the following lists will be found to 
follow the decimal, duodecimal, or sexdecimal system, and to 
correspond with the number of feet in the respective rods 
from which they spring ; and if these 13 and 14 feet rods are 
rightly accounted for as I have suggested ante (see diagrams), 
then they too will fall into the list of duodecimal rods and 
viigates as well as the others. 



3o8 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



Size of Virgates in Acres Decimal^ Duodecimal^ and Sexdecimai, The 
MS. from which the size is taken appears in the second column. 



Rod of xo feet or cabits 


MS. 


Size 


Decimal 


7^ in each field, or 5 in each 


L.E 


15 


Bluntisham 


Hunts. 


of three fields 


>t 


II 


Colne 


»i 




H.R. 


II 


HalliweU 


II 


flo, or KO b each field 


L.E. 


20 




Cambs. 




H.R. 


II 


Cottenham 


II 




If 


II 


Grantesete 


II 




L.E. 


If 


HeiUa 


II 




» 


fi 


Hardwick 


II 




i» 


II 


Lindona 


II 




B.R 


II 


Rykenhall 


Durnam 




L.E. 


11 


Stow 


If 




D.P. 


II 


Nasetocha 


Essex 




i» 


II 


Witham 


If 




H.R. 


II 


Houghton 


Hunts. 




•> 


II 


Riptune 


II 




*t 


II 


Stivekel 


If 




L.E 


It 


Pulham 


Norfolk 




If 


II 


Rattlesdene 


Suffolk 




i» 


11 


Weringhescta 


ff 




W.P. 


fi 


Hcrferton 


Warwickshize 


15 in each field, or xo b 


H.R. 


30 
II 


Abintone 


Cambs. 


each of three fields 


If 


Barton 


ft 




» 


II 


Brane 


f 1 




II 


If 


Carlton 


II 




II 


II 


Chingeston 


fl 




II 


II 


Crochestune 


II 




It 


II 


Cumbertune 


II 




II 


If 


Ellcsworth 


II 




II 


II 




If 




II 


II 


Grantesete 


If 




II 


11 


Haslingfield 


ff 




•I 


II 


Papworth 


II 




II 


II 


Trumpington 


fl 




II 


91 


Warateuorde 


If 




L.E. 


II 


Wivelingham 


fl 




B.B. 


II 


Boldon 


Durham 




II 


II 


Newton 


II 




II 


ff 


Wermouth 


II 




II 


II 


Roseshopp 


If 




II 


II 


Esyngton 


If 




II 


II 


Shotton 


If 




II 


II 


Tryllesdon 


II 




If 


II 


Seggefield 


If 




II 


II 


Middleham 


II 




II 


II 


Norton 


If 




If 


II 


Bedlington 


If 




ff 


fl 


Quycham 


ff 




D.P. 


II 


Belcham 


Essex 




If 


If 


Chingeforda 


fl 




If 


If 


Berlinga 


ff 




fi 


II 


Odulvesnasa 


ff 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



309 



Rod of xo feet or cubits 


MS. 


Size 


Decimal 




D.P. 


30 


Canesforde 


Herts. 




)f 


ti 


Calendon 


•9 




»t 


9i 


Erdley 


9» 




L.E. 


II 


Haddam 


• • 




H.R. 


II 


Chesterton 


Hunts 




») 


99 


SybistoD 
Upwode 


9» 




R.C. 


1) 


» 




H.R. 


99 


Conington 


>» 




«> 


»9 


Gidding 


9> 




R.C. 


It 


Wistow 


9> 




91 


II 


Waidebose 


f» 




L.E. 


91 


Herthyrst 


»» 


aobeachfield . . . 


H.R. 


40 


Barrenton 


Cambs. 




i» 


l> 


Wimpol 


i» 




B.B. 


19 


Whitworth 


Durham 




L.E. 


19 


Hatfelda 


Herts. 




H.R. 


It 


Breninetune 


Hunts. 




1) 


91 


Chenebalton 


II 




L.E. 


9> 


Brugeham 


Suffolk 




ft 


99 


Brandon 


•» 




» 


9> 


Berkyngs 


» 




L.E. 


12 


Hecham 


99 


Rod of xa feet or cubits 


Duodecimal 


6 in each field • 


Dodinton 


Cambs. 


9 in each field, or 6 in each 


KM. 


18 


Warating 


99 


of three fields 


R.C. 


II 


Halliwell 


99 


IS in each field, or 8 in each 
of three fields. See note 


H.R. 


24 


Badburgham 


99 


E.M. 




Havochestun 


99 


at foot of table 


L.E. 


99 


Littleport 


99 




f f 


99 


Stretham 


99 






99 


WUburton 


99 




R.C. 




Barthona 


Bedfordshire 




B.B. 


99 


Clivedon 


Durham 




f y 


99 


Wennouth 


99 




$9 


99 


NeubotU 


99 






99 


Moorton 


91 




D.P. 


99 


Wicham 


Essex 




P.G. 


99 


Frowcester 


Gloucester 






99 


Duntesbum 


99 




H.R. 


99 


Adone 


Hunts 




91 


99 


Adelintune 


99 




R.C. 


91 


Stivekel 


II 




t> 


l» 


Ellington 


9t 




H.R. 




Glatton 


»9 




L.E. 


99 


Dereham 


Norfolk 








Waltona 


99 


x8 in each field, or la b each 
of three fields 


»t 


36 

99 


Ely 
Escelforde 


Cambs. 
II 




II 


• 1 


Foxtune 


99 




>i 


l» 


Gratedene 


99 



3IO A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 
Size of Virgaies in Acres Decimaiy ^c, — continued 



Rod of za feet or cubiu 


MS. 


Sixe 


Duodecimal 




P.G. 


36 


Bocheland 


Gloucestershire 




W.P. 


II 


Sidentune 


Warwickshire 


34 in each of a fields or 16 


R.C. 


48 


Cranfield 


Bedfordshire 


in each of three fields, and 
see note at foot of table 


P.G. 


II 


Schytlington 
Aldersorde 


If 

Gloucestershire 




•» 


tf 


BoxweU 


If 




ffi 


ft 


Hamme 


ff 




ft 


II 


Aurenel 


ff 




>f 


If 


Culne 


ff 




H.R, 


If 


Bierne 


Hunts 




L.E. 


II 


Nordualde 


Norfolk 




W.P. 
B.B. 


If 
16 


Alweston 


Warwickshire 


Rod of 16 feet or cubits 


Sexdedmal 


8 in each field 


Lanchester 


Durham 




f» 


If 


WUton 


•I 




L.E. 


If 


Tyd 


Cambs. 




H.R 


II 


Slepe 


Hunts 




D.P. 


19 


Draiton 


Middlesex 




L.E. 


If 


Thorpe 


Norfolk 




>» 


II 


Schipedham 


If 




II 


II 


Agavael 


Wales, Venedotian 
Code. SeeA»j/ 


x6 in each of two fields, 


R.C. 


32 


Chatteris 


Cambs. 


see note at foot 


>> 


If 


Pampisford 


fi 




H.R. 


II 


Hecteslai 


If 




R.C. 


• 1 


Broughton 


Hunts 




D.Bk. 


II 


Hitune 


Lancashire, page 269 




ti 


If 


Stochestede 






>i 


If 


Sextone 






tf 


II 


Chirchdele 






If 


fi 


Liderlant 






II 


fi 


Hunne 






II 


II 


Tonetun 






II 


II 


Mele 






II 


II 


Uluentune 






II 


II 


Esmedune 






11 


If 


Alretune 






II 


II 


Spec 






>f 


1) 


Aldemwelle 






ti 


II 


Wilbaldeslei 






II 


II 


Uuetone 






II 


II 


Wauretren 






- II 


II 


Boltelai 


1 




II 


If 


Achetun 






II 


II 


Fomebei 






f 1 


II 


Emuluesldel 


i 




II 


If 


Hoiland 






ti 


fi 


Daltone 






II 


II 


Schelmersdele „ | 




II 


II 




1 
11 • 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



3"i 



Rod of la feet or cubttt 


MS. 


Size 


Duodeciinal 




D.Bk. 


32 


Otegrimele 


Lancashire 








Latune 










Herletone 










Malinge 










Bartuna 










Heleshall 






L.E. 




Glamisford 


Suffolk 



Note re/erred to.~ln regard to the virgates of 24 and 48, thev might be, and probably were in 
some cases, really sezdecimal, repreitenttng 8 and j6 in each of three 6elds ; though, of course, in 
a system of open-field cultivation and strips it would be easy to divide any vir>;ate or collection 
of vir^tes from a two-course into a three-course shift. It must always be remembered that 
someumes only the taxable area is stated in the MS., so that 30 may mean 3a, ao mean 34, and so 
on. See the case of Great Shelford, post. 

Let US now see how well adapted such a system was in 
the beginning of things for a tribe or body of men having an 
open-field cultivation, possibly under co-aration, and moving 
about from spot to spot, and pursuing the methods described 
by Tacitus in the ' Germania,* xxvi : ' Facilitatem partiendi 
camporum spatia praestant. Arva per annos mutant, et 
superest ager : nee enim cum ubertate et amplitudine soli 
labore contendunt, ut pomaria conserant et prata separent et 
hortos rigent : sola terras seges imperatur.' So, too, Caesar, 
* De Bello Gallico,' vi. c. 22 : * Neque quisquam agri modum 
certum aut fines habet proprios ; sed magistratus ac principes 
in annos singulos gentibus cognation ibusque hominum 
qui una coierunt quantum et quo loco visum est agri attri- 
buunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt' With the 
Angli, the full pole land or, to use the words of old MSS., 
the * plena vii^a,' was in acreSy generally^ in each field of the 
same number as the pole or virga was itself in feet ; whatever 
the pole was as used by any manor in feet, such was the 
plena virga in acres in each fieldy i.e. in the sown field and in 
the field lying * ad warectum,' and to be sown in the follow- 
ing year. A Mercian household would receive 16 acres, 
i.e. 16 acres in each field, and for it a pole of 16 feet 
would drop 192 times; when the pole, or virga, fell for 




312 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

the last time, the household's assessment on the land so 
measured would be 32 pence, and it would hold 16 acres in 
each of the common fields, 32 Mercian pence equalling 30 
Norman. 

For the mansio of the Angli — i.e. the *hida * of Bede — the 
pole of 18 feet would fall 40 times in each field, and 36 
acres would be thus allotted with the yearly contribution of 
36 pence, being the eighth part of the pound-paying unit of 
288 acres, 36 Anglo-Saxon pence equalling 30 Norman. 

For the like mansio of the Frank or Alamannic settler, a 
pole of 15 feet would drop 40 times in each field, and at 
the end of the measuring it would hold, by right, 30 acres, 
or 15 in each field — i.e. the eighth part of a pound-paying 
unit of 240 acres — and would be bound to contribute the 
eighth part of the common pound of money or food — or 
30 Frank pence of 24 grains to the penny. 

Of course I have spoken here of original allotments made 
by a people in full power over the land, and changing about. 
The time would come, no doubt, when such a people would 
settle, and a mansio, or household, would continue to hold 
the same land. After a further lapse of time they would be 
attacked, and partially, or entirely, driven out by the other 
tribes or peoples, who would either reallot the land as before 
or would regroup the strips already existing. 

This regrouping would of necessity follow the divisions 
of the respective pounds. One of the groupings of the British, 
viz. in North Wales, was, as we have seen, founded on a rod 
of 16 feet, of 9 inches to three palms, thus making up 256 
acres to the pound-paying unit. This grouping, if it existed 
before, certainly survived the Roman occupation ; and it was 
not till the country was reoccupied by the Franks or some 
other people, dividing their pound into decimal divisions, 
comprising subdivisions of duodecimal units, and by another 
people — viz. the Anglo-Saxons — dividing their pound into 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



3>3 



duodecimal divisions with subdivisions of decimal units, that 
the land was regrouped in those places where they drove the 
old inhabitants out, and such regrouping would follow the 
divisions of the respective pounds and virgae of the new 
comers. Whether the original allotment remained undis- 
turbed, or whether the land was regrouped, it would still 
be cut up, as before, into * gavaels,' or virgates corresponding 
with the length of the pole. 

I show below the libra, or pound of silver, and its different 
divisions, as described, and the areal hida, or terra ad carucam, 
divided or regrouped, according to the size of the acres, into 
full virgates or gavaels, at the time of Domesday. 



Frank ? or Danish ? 

840 pence (3a wheat grains to penny) to libra. 
A 



(Drusian.) 

Decimal rod ot 
ten feet of 334 
mm., 6 falls to 
acre and mak- 
ing 4,840 Stat, 
yflurds of '3048 
to the foot. 



94 strips of xo acres each » zo pence 



314 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



Anglo-Saxon. 

a88 pence (ao grains Troy to penn j) to librau 

B 



Duodecimal rod 
of 1 2 feet of 279 
mm., 6 falls to 
acre of 4,840 

Stat, yards. 



ao strips of 13 acres each=za pence. 

Mercian. 

(256 (30 wheat grains to penny) pence to libra. 
C 



Sexdecimal rod of 
16 feet of -3048 
m., 16 falls to 
acre of 10,240 
Stat, yards. 



z6 strips of z6 acres each=: z ounce of silver, or z6 pence. 

The land on the right side of the thick line represents fallow 
land ; that on the left, sown land ; and the diagrams ABC 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 315 

represent imaginary pounds and pound-paying units. The 
acres were really all dispersedly lying in the open fields, as 
stated before, and they are only shown as above for conveni- 
ence in explanation. There would be 12 full virgates or 
plenae terrae of 20 acres in unit A, 10 full vii^ates or plenae 
terrae of 24 in unit B, and 8 full virgates or plenae terrae of 32 
in unit C. As to how they fitted into a larger unit or leuga, 
see, antey diagrams of leugae. 

It will be observed that I have subdivided the diagram in 
each case into two divisions, representing a two-course shift 
sown and fallow, i.e. taxpaying and not taxpaying (the reason 
of which will be detailed further on). If we suppose that the 
sown portion carries all the taxation, and that the 120 sown 
acres in diagram A are divided into 12 units or half- virgates 
of ID acres each and 20 pence (each acre thus representing 
two pence), it is plain that every time the pole dropped on 
the ground it represented one farthing in relation to the 
whole hide and pound of 240 (or i halfpenny if considering 
the sown land only). The land being plotted out into strips 
and arranged as far as possible so that the acre should be of 
the oblong shape, of the proportion of i to 10 or 12, the 
allotment took place; one household's land would not lie 
together : we may be very sure that the more the ownership 
of the rood strips was scattered the more equitable the division 
would be ; but for every rood strip it would be liable to i 
farthing, i.e. \ penny on the sown portion. The number of 
the strips contained in a vii^ate that a man would take 
would depend upon whether he worked alone or whether others 
joined with him. If one worked alone on a system like that 
in diagram A, as far as number of acres is concerned, he 
would probably have five acres, or even less, in each field ; 
if two worked together, then they would have ten acres 
in each field, paying in the first case lorf. and in the latter 
2od. So in regard to diagram B, the Anglo-Saxons, dividing 



3i6 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

their pound into 288 pence, divided a larger hide (and virgate) 
than A (as far as number is concerned), namely 288 acres. This 
allotment of land, called a ' virgate,' was supposed to be as 
much as was sufficient to support one household, and at the 
time of Bede was called a * hide,' and even in Dorsetshire and 
Cornwall. &c., it was still called a hide in Domesday, though 
the geldable unit of taxation was also called a hide or caru- 
cata. In the same way in Ireland the quarter of a townland 
is often called a townland ; so too in North Wales the trev 
was the quarter of the pound-paying maenol, but in South 
Wales the trev takes the place of the maenol. 

Each acre of the virgate was divided, as I have shown 
before, by smaller virgae ; therefore the virgate was practically 
also divided throughout its entirety, each subdivision being 
called a bovata, and some confusion has arisen from these 
subdivisions being also called virgates. The bovates repre- 
sented the yearly work of one ox, and if one man or more 
supplied one ox there would be more than one man at work 
on one virgate, and where this was the case the co-partners 
were called * socii ' and * participes ' ; but in Domesday the 
full virgate is treated as one man's estate, and, indeed, is 
sometimes called a * villanus ' or * servus.' 

These virgates, so often alluded to in old MSS., have 
apparently been (from the time of Agard to the present time) 
a source of some confusion. They have been supposed to 
be the virgates, or quarters^ of the Domesday geldable hide, 
whereas they undoubtedly were the portion allotted, as I 
have shown, in the open fields of any one particular manor 
(but lying dispersedly in acre and rood strips) to the homines 
of the lord long before the time of D. Bk. The component 
parts of a virgate being intermixed with those of other 
virgates, each was. bound by necessity to follow the course 
of cropping (two, three, or more) in vogue, for the time 
being, in a manor. The fact that the open fields consisted 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 317 

of uninclosed acre or rood strips independent of each other, 
gives a clue to the question why the size of the virgates 
should vary in different manors. These are all, as a rule, 
found to consist of 8, 10, or 12 acres, or a multiple of 
8, ID, or 12 acres. They are either in a group of 8, 16. 
24, 32, 48, 64, in a group of 10, 15, 20, 40, 60 acres, or in 
a group of 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 72 acres, the first group repre- 
senting perhaps the old British, the next group being Frank, 
and the last Anglo-Saxon, either in original allotment or by 
regrouping of old strips. The Angli had one method of 
counting and dividing their unit (differing from that of 
their neighbours) by which 144 was 120 with them in units. 
This system is found even in D. Bk. itself, viz. T. i, fol. 
336' : ' Hie numerus anglice computatur I centum pro cxx ' ; 
and again in the same folio: 'cc anglico numero CCXL.' 
When the land was first occupied by the Angli, Jutes, and 
others, these acre and rood strips — even where originally laid 
out by Britons, like the Welsh ' erws,' and existing perhaps 
long before — would (where not replotted) be distributed 
among the crowd of adventurers ; and it is almost sure that 
they would then redistribute according to the system of 
counting used by the new owners, corresponding as it would 
with the divisions of their pound so as to fit in with it In 
some settlements the new men, who divided their pound into 
shillings in decimab and pence in duodecimals, would receive 
10, 20, or 30 acres ; the Angli and their cousins, who counted 
by the long hundred and divided their pound in shillings of 
duodecimals and pence in decimals, would take 12, 24, or 
36 acres, which would correspond to the divisions of their 
respective pounds. Where the original inhabitants were not 
disturbed, the old grouping of acres would still remain. At 
any rate, if this surmise is correct (and there are good 
grounds for accepting it as correct), the size of the virgate, 
if well ascertained, may be somewhat of a clue to the problem 



3i8 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELD ABLE UNIT OF 

how, after the destruction or absorption of the ancient popula- 
tion, our villages were respectively repeopled, and by whom. 
When D. Bk. was made, it was absolutely necessary to adopt 
one or other of the three systems as the basis of it ; and 
1 20 acres for the geldable hide, and 15, 20, or 30 acres, &c. 
for the geldable virgate, seems to have been adopted for 
the purposes of taxation — the three systems being made to 
fit to one common standard, both in money and land, by the 
process alluded to in the latter part of this paper. 

There appears to be some confirmation of this view in an 
entry in the ' Hundred Rolls,' vol. ii. page 561. At Shippere, 
in the county of Cambridge, William de la Haye is said 
to hold a hide 'quas continet sexies viginti acras terrx et 
pratl* This statement is immediately followed by another, 
running thus : ' Villani ejusdem quilibet eorum tenet dimidium 
virgatae terrse custumariae quae continet XVIII acras.' Unless 
this statement, that the hide contained 120 acres, had hap- 
pened to be placed so close to the further statement that 
a virgate was 36 acres, the entry might, and probably before 
now would, have been quoted as an authority that the area 
of the Domesday geldable hide at Shepreth was four times 
the amount of 36 — i.e. 144 acres— as has been incautiously 
done in regard to similar entries in the * Hundred Rolls.' 

The Hundred Rolls of Huntingdonshire state a 'hide' 
(i.e. a terra ad car, and not the geldable hide) to consist, in 
certain manors, of a certain number of virgates, and they 
also state that a virgate in the respective manors contained 
respectively such and such a number of acres ; but the latter 
virgates are in actual area no more the virgates of the Domes- 
day geldable hide, or unit of assessment, than the virgate of 
Shippere, of 36 acres, could be in area the virgate of a 
geldable hide of 120 acres, because the areal virgate of 36 
contained six acres which was extra hidam altogether, as will 
be shown later on. Though the area of one virgate might 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 319 

not be altered, its component parts might be regrouped 
and rearranged : for instance, the component parts of three 
virgates might be so arranged on a change of cropping as to 
form two virgates — thus, taking three virgates of 20 acres in a 
two-course shift on the manor : going into a three-course they 
might be arranged thus (20+ io) + (20-»- io)=2 virgates of 
30 ; so also 2 virgates of 24 might become 3 of 16. This 
would be especially easy in those cases where the villani held 
half-virgates. 

Many false calculations as to the geldable unit of 
D. Bk. have been made on the assumption that (he virgate 
of D. Bk. was 30 acres in all cases. Great caution is there- 
fore necessary before we accept as conclusive of the matter 
the statement in MSS. (such as D. Bk., H.R., and R.C.) 
that a virgate is 30 acres, &c., in area. In very many cases 
these MSS. speak only of the taxed land, there being an 
addition of one-fifth at least (see post^ ' Anglicus numerus *), 
and if of wara a considerable deal more (a third or a half), to 
be made before we arrive at the total area contained in the 
virgate. There are instances to be found in the MSS. which 
give the virgate as 30, but which, on reference to MSS, 
manifestly speak only of the geldated part of a virgate 36 in 
area. The same system of grouping into money-paying units 
existed in Scotland under the name of a ' Tirung * or ounce 
land each, containing 20 penny lands, or a Scotch pound of 
one shilling and eight pence of our money. 

IIL THE AREAL 'HIDA,' 'TERRA AD CARUCAM' OR 
'CARUCATA' OF THE LORDS AND THEIR MEN. 

Having fully discussed the method on which the land was 
allotted and distributed in ancient times before Domesday in 
the remote past, it follows in due order to look at the system 
in actual working at or near the time of Domesday. 



320 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

The description of most manors in D. Bk. begins with 
a statement showing the number of hides, car., or carucatae, 
at which the whole manor was taxed. This statement is 
followed by another, giving the number of such hides, &c., as 
were in dotninio ; it is plain, therefore, that, after deducting 
the area of such of these hides of the demesne as were geld- 
ated, the remaining hides, &c., or rather their area, must 
have been held by the homines of the lord, freely and ser- 
vilely, jointly or in severalty. 

If we thus know the number of hides, ad geldum, left for 
the homines after such of the lord's hides in demesne as are 
infra hidam — i.e. taxed— are allowed for, we can thus find 
the area of the whole of their holdings, which, if the system 
of pound-paying units was still in force, and we have no 
reason to suppose otherwise, must, as far as the terra ad 
carucam is concerned, be so many hides of 120 acres, in some 
cases, and in others the total of so many imaginary plots of 
120 acres each ad geldum^ plus an equal number of imaginary 
plots of 120 acres extra hidam and ad warectandum^ in a 
two-course manor, and of 60 acres in a three-course manor ; 
in other words, so many plots of 120 acres, or 240 acres each 
in the one case, and 180 each in the other. 

If each terra ad carucam represents a certain number of 
virgates working together, it follows that, if the number of 
plough lands or terra ad carucas of the tenants given in 
D. Bk, is multiplied by the number of virgates one of them 
contained, the result will show the total number and size of 
the virgates into which the whole area of the pound-paying 
units or the imaginary plots of 120, 240, or 180 acres, each 
worked by the homines, was divided. See, post, some 
entries from D. Bk. thus worked out. The foregoing and 
following remarks must, however, be considered in connection 
with the system of grouping into 8, 10 and 12, and their 
multiples, and the remarks made,/t7j/, under the heading of 
' Anglicus numerus.* 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 321 

The ureal terra ad carucam of D. Bk. was thus the area 
of the land under the plough in any one manor, expressed 
in D. Bk. by a statement of the number of terrce into which 
it was divided, such terrce being, however, sometimes called 
carucata. D. Bk. not only gives the number of ploughs, but 
subdivides such statements into lord's ploughs and tenants' 
ploughs — such last-mentioned ploughs being generally, but 
by no means always, an association of two or more virgates 
of the manor to work one terra. So also very often there 
is, in the same manor, a double statement in D. Bk., the 
one statement treating each separate holding with one ox 
even as a single terra^ and the other treating the association 
of the oxen of two or more virgates, for purposes of work, 
as one terra. It requires, therefore, some attention in each 
case to ascertain whether single estates or persons are meant, 
and whether single virgates are called term and carucatce, or 
whether an association of two or more virgates is so meant. 
This will be more particularly alluded to later on under the 
heading ' Villanus and Servus.* 

The area covered, even by the tenants' associated ploughs 
(weighted as they would be by the additional work that they 
were bound by their servitia and consuetudines to do on the 
lord's demesne), would be less than the area covered by the 
lord's ploughs thus assisted. The terra ad carucam of the 
whole manor (being the area covered by the lord's ploughs, 
thus assisted, plus the terra ad carucam covered by the tenants' 
ploughs) would therefore, as regards any one plough, be the 
mean of all the ploughs, demesne and servile. For instance, 
the lord of some manor might have an area of 960 acres, covered 
by six ploughs, each taking 160 acres : and the homines of 
the same manor might also have an area of 960 acres covered 
by twelve associated ploughs (four vii^atarii forming one 
plough) each taking 80 acres : the two sets covering together 
1,920 acres (all in open fields, with the acres and roods inter- 

VOL. I. V 



322 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELD ABLE UNIT OF 

mixed), being a mean of 120 acres to each plough, demesne 
and associated. The terra in such a manor would be expressed 
in D.Bk. as terra ad carucam for eighteen ploughs ; or, if each 
virgate of the homines was treated per j^ as a terra^ then as 
terra for fifty-four ploughs ; or it might be expressed in both 
ways. 

That this is so must be obvious ; but, further, in some 
Inquisitions of Manors the assistance rendered by the caruca 
adjutrices of the villani is itself estimated by caruca. It is so 
estimated in the Inquisitions of Manors contained in the 
Ramsey Chartulary, at the Record Office; for instance, in 
that of Slepe (St Ives) (Rolls Series, page 282), after setting 
out the several cultures of the demesne, it continues thus : — 
'quas quidem culturae coli possunt suificienter cum tribus 
carucis propriis, et consuetudine carucarum villas, et duabus 
precariis, quae consuetudo ad valentiam trium carucarum 
a^timatur.' 

If reference is made to D. Bk. it will be noticed that the 
terms caruca, carucata and terra ad carucam are of constant 
occurrence ; but, if careful discrimination does not attend the 
user of these words, the same mystery and ambiguity will 
follow which have baffled attempts to estimate the areas 
referred to in D. Bk. . 

The words caruca, carucata, terra ad carucam^ undoubtedly 
mean the land of one plough ; but, as I have shown, ploughs 
are not all of the same strength. There would the smallest 
plough or caruca of all, consisting of one ox, as at Trewallem, 
in Cornwall, D. Bk. 123' where two of such caructB joined 
together and worked one caruca consisting (as appears by the 
Exon D., page 214) of the two oxen. 

There would be the plough of one virgate consisting of 
two oxen, which is repeatedly alluded to in D. Bk. as a 
caruca ; for instance, at Derbei, D. Bk. tom. i. foL 269, • in 
unaquaque hida sunt vi caruc, terra,' meaning that in each 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 323 

hide of 120 acres there were six virgates of 20 acres : so also 
(at D. Bk. torn. i. fol. 25 3'*) we read that in Medeltune, in 
Leicestershire, ' Ibi sunt vii hida et una carucata terra et una 
bovata. In unaquaque hida sunt xiiii carucata terra et dimu 
dium * ; the explanation being that the hides were in areas 
*juxta estimatioftem Anglorumi i.e. by the greater hundred* 
viz. 144 acres, giving virgates of about io% and if the land 
was wara^ then 288 acres, giving virgates of 20*. There 
would be the associated ploughs or caruca of the homines 
(containing i, 2, 3, 4, or more virgates) making up terras of 
60, 72, 80, 90, 96, 108, &c., which very often are meant when 
the word carucata is used in regard to the terrae of the 
homines. There would be the libera carucata or the terra 
free from services on the lord's land. There would be the 
supposed carucata of the whole manor of 120*, which common 
standard D. Bk. calls a * hida^ • terra ad carucaml or * carucata 
adgeldutn* and uses for the purposes of taxation, and which 
is the subject of this paper. There would be the lord's 

* carucatal often double the size of the terra of the homines, 
but varying according to the amount of help received from 
the *caruc(B adjutrices^ of the homines, and depending, 
amongst other things, upon how far such services had been 
commuted for money payments. Lastly, there would be the 
pattern plough of the whole manor indicated by Fleta's 
carucate, consisting of 160 acres in a two-course manor, and 
180 in a three-course manor. Every one of the foregoing 
^carucatal from the one-ox plough of Trewallem to Fleta's 
carucate, is to be found in D. Bk. 

The consideration of this fact throws light on the word 

* hidcL* If the supposed original and well-known meaning 
most often attached to the word kida^ viz. the land of one 
plough, be accepted, then all «the foregoing remarks might, in 
substance, if not in name, apply as fully to the word hida as 
to the word caruca and carucata ; and the familia of Bede 



324 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

(as suggested in the beginning of the paper) might rightly be 
construed hida^ and hide landy and would be the same as the 
carucata or virgate of Derbei and Medeltune, the Welsh 
tydden with its gavael, or the Irish balliboe. Further, we 
should have the hide or terra of the associated plough of two 
or more virgates (as it and the word carucata are, in fact, 
used in D. Bk. itself in regard to manors in some counties : 
see the Tables /^j/) ; we should have a libera hida answering 
to the libera carucatay and we should also have the subject of 
this paper, viz. the average standard and uniform geldable 
hida or terra ad carucam or carucata of D. Bk., viz. 120 acres 
for taxational purposes, the lord's hide, and the sown land 
and idle shift, or Fleta's carucate. 

Upon a close examination of D. Bk., this supposition is 
found to be true in fact. In the manorial surve}^ of most 
counties contained in D. Bk., the taxable area (expressed by 
a certain number of geldable hidce^ car., or terrce ad car,) is 
placed first, and then such area is subdivided into or spread 
over terra ad car. ; thus in Bedfordshire, * Ammetelle pro v 
hidis se defendit. Terra estviii car.,' and in Nottinghamshire, 
Werchesope ' Habet Elfi Hi car. terra ad geldum. Terra vi 
car! But in very many manors in the counties of Dorset, 
Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, York, and in Wiltshire, and 
perhaps elsewhere, the foregoing formula is reversed, and the 
actual number of terrce into which the whole area is divided 
is placed first under the name of * hida' or * carucata' and 
the number of taxable areas of 120 acres each is placed 
second under the terms * terra ad x car.l or • hanc possunt 
ararexcar.,' such car. implying uniform areas of 120 acres 
each. For instance, in Dorsetshire, * Pidere geldavit pro jc 
hidis ; terra est vi car.l No. 167. So also in York, Rodreham 
' Habet Acun i manerium de v carucat. cut geldum ubi possunt 
ere Hi car' If Pidere had been in Cambridgeshire, it would 
have been returned thus : Pidere se defendit pro vi hidis ; terra 



AbSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 325 

est X car. But further, this supposition is proved in another 

way : namely, by cases in D. Bk. where the word hida is in 

the same survey used in more than one sense. The survey of the 

manor of Pavton, in Cornwall (D. Bk. 134', Exon D.,p. 181), 

is a case in point In this survey we find the word hida used 

as meaning (i) the geldable hide or area of 120 acres, (2) the 

lord's hide or car., and (3) the virgates or car. of the villains. 

The actual survey runs thus in the Exon D., * In ea sunt 

xliiii hid, et reddidit gildum pro viii hidis ; has possunt arare 

insitnul Ix car. De his habet episcopus in dominio i hid, et Hi 

hid 

car. et villani habent xliii ; et xl car,' The solution is 

carr, 

this. There were 8 {Anglico numero) geldable hides of 

120 + 24 {extra hidam), or a total of 1,152 acres, 192 of 

which would be extra hidam. Stt.post, ' Anglicus numerus.' 

There were 44 hidce or car.^ i.e. i lord's hide or car. of 120 

acres in demesne and 43 hides, car., or vii^ates of 24 acres 

belonging to the villains; but from the statement * has 

possunt arare Ix car. ' we are made aware that the total area 

must have been larger than the above, and on examination 

the manor is found to be in a three-course. Working this 

out, we find that 1,152+5/6 = 1,728 (3 x 576), and that this 

divided by 72 car. (Le. 60 Anglico numero) gives as the 

virgate 24, as before. If from the above area of 1,728 there is 

deducted 180 ( the lord's geldable hide of 120 plus 60 idle 

shift), there remains 1,548, and if this is divided by 43 it gives 

36 as the villains' terra (24 + 12 idle shift). The peculiar 

hid 
entry ' xliii ' et xl car. ' shows, if not meant as an erasure, 
^ carr. 

that ' hid. * and ' carr. ' meant the same thing ; moreover, if the 

total area of 1,728 is reduced one-sixth, as it would be reduced 

{see^post^ ' Anglicus numerus ') by the D. Bk. authorities, it 

would appear as 1,440 (960 + 480) ; and when this is divided 

by the Ix car. [has possunt arare Ix car), the virgate of the 



326 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

manor of 24 again appears. There is a case in Surrey which 
shows that an area, which had been expressed tempore Regis 
Edwardi in hides (meaning thereby virgates), is converted in 
D. Bk. into the uniform hide of 120 for taxational purposes. 
The case is that of Estreham, which is entered in D. Bk. as 
follows : ' Estreham tunc se defendit pro v hid. et mode similiter 
pro i hid, et i virg. terrce! It will be noticed that 6 (i.e. 5 
Anglico numero) hides or virgates of 24 = I hid. of 
120 + I virg. = I44» and the sixth part being taken off as 
extra hidam (see post\ there remains the geldable area of 
120 acres or 5 virgates of 24 acres. 

In those few cases in which there were hides of appro- 
priated pasture, as at Cottenham, the area was most probably 
of wara^ le. 240 ; speaking generally, however, only the terra 
ad carucam was taxed; and even perhaps Cottenham 
Common might, as terra ad carucam unbroken, be looked on 
as such. It necessarily follows from these facts — ^and the fact, 
if true, that the D. Bk. geldable hide, terra ad carucam^ or 
carucate, as distinguished from the areal hida etc, was a fixed 
quantity of 120 acres — that Eyton and others have erred 
largely in regard to the geldable hide ; that Kemble's hide of 
40 acres was nothing more than half a terra ad carucam ; and 
that the so-called * Gheld acre,' which is said to be in area 
five acres, is a myth. (See Eyton ' on the Domesday of 
Dorset,' pp. 14, 15, etc., and Kemble, 'Saxons in England/ 
Appendix B., p. 490.) 

IV. THE UNIT OF ASSESSMENT. 

As Domesday Book was a survey made of all geldated 
lands and manors comprised in it with a view to the taxation 
thereof — in other words, a schedule of tax- paying units — there 
must have been in it (as in every other rate-book) some one 
uniform unit of assessment ; and there is no more ground for 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 327 

saying that the old pound-paying unit was disregarded and 
another taken which varied in extent or contained an 
uncertain number of acres, than in saying that a pound 
of an income-tax schedule might as a unit of assessment 
contain twenty shillings in one county, and twenty pence in 
another. 

This pound-paying unit of assessment (uniform as it was 
in size and character all over England), in Domesday Book 
is, however, indicated in different ways in different counties 
therein. In some counties this unit is indicated by the word 
' hida ' (' se defendit pro x hidis '), in others by the expression 
';r carucat£ ad geldum,' in others by the expression ^x car. 
possunt ere/ and in others by ' terra est x car. : ' but in every 
case it will be observed that, supposing the word * hida ' to be 
equivalent to the word ' carucata ' (as I have no doubt it is), 
the unit of assessment is everywhere linked as it were with 
the word ' caruca," indicating that the taxation of the country 
as far as the bare land was concerned, was in a great measure, 
though not altogether, governed by the extent of it under the 
plough. So, too, in Ireland, being a pastoral country, it 
appears by the Brehon laws that their divisions of land and 
money are linked with the cow as the chief grazing animal. 
As the above remarks apply to the whole of England, and as 
it is absolutely necessary in every entry in Domesday Book 
to find out which particular portion of it indicates the unit of 
assessment, I have set out here entries of illustrations taken 
from a county in the south, the east, the west and the 
north of England, as stated in D. Bk. and the Exon D. Bk. 
These entries are to be found (with others from every county 
in England) in a paper read by me, in February 1885, 
before the Cambridge Antiquarian Association, and is 
printed in their Communications, Vol. VI. (No. XXVII.). 
I must again repeat, however, that in the entries referring 
to most counties the unit of assessment, i.e. the number 



328 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

of the geldable hides or carucates is placed first in D. Bk.» 
and then the number of terrae ad carucam on which the 
taxation is laid is stated : for instance, in Rutland D. Bk. 
fol. 293^ we have the entry 'in Alfuodeston Wapentake sunt 
II Hundrez. In unoquoque Xli carucatae ad geldum et in 
unoquoque XXIIII carucs ; ' but in Dorset, Middlesex, 
Yorkshire, Wiltshire, and Sussex, the returns are the reverse 
of this : the ' terra ad carucam ' and the ' car. potest ibi ere * 
appear to represent the standard geldated area or unit of 
assessment and the word * hida ' in Dorsetshire, Middlesex, 
Sussex, and Wiltshire, and the ' car. terras ad geldum ' in 
Yorkshire, are used to express the actual area of the plough 
lands on which the taxation is laid, and the terms ' terra est 
car. * in Dorset, Middlesex, Sussex, and Wiltshire, and * car. 
potest ere * in Yorkshire imply what the geldable hide or 
carucate implies in other counties. 

Immediately following these entries I have placed those 
portions of the tables in my Cambridge paper which go to 
explain such entries and the subsequent parts of this paper. 
In those tables it will be seen that I speak of a geldable 
' hide,' &c., of land ; by that is meant so much land as the 
yearly value of it amounts to nominally i libra or pound of 
silver in weight. I must, however, warn my readers that 
when I talk of the pound-paying unit of assessment I refer 
only to the bare land, i.e. the gafol gelding land or the land 
that was valued in old days at id. per acre ; everything else, 
such as mills, rents, ferries, fees of court, renders of any kind, 
are an addition of items totally apart from the pound-paying 
unit, though the whole, no doubt, is included in the • summa,* 
or the * totum valet,' or * in totis valentiis,' as the case 
may be. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 329 

Cambridgeshire. 
No. 

I Belesham^ 190^. Ibi sunt IX hidae. Terra XIX car. In dominio v hidae et 

ibi sant v car. et 11 plas poss. esse. Ibi xii vilL et xii bord. cum 
XII car. 
3 Burtwelle^ I92\ Ibi x hid. et I virg. Terra est xvi car. In dominio in 
hidse et xl acr. et ibi iiii car. Ibi xlii vilL et dim. cum xii car. 

3 Abintone^ 194*. Ibi v hidae. Terra est viii car. In dominio ii hid. et 

dim. et ibi sunt in car. Ibi xi vill. et v bord. cum v car. 

4 Bertotu, 20Ct, in bid. et dim. Terra est vi car. In dominio in car et in 

vill. cum XII I bord. habent in car. 

5 Badburgk^ 194*. ii hid. et dim. et XXIIII ac. Texra est nil car. In 

dominio est una et xvii vill. et in bord. cum in car. 

6 BarifUone^ 193*. ii hid. Terra est in car. In dominio i hida et ibi i car. 

Ibi VIII bord. et v cot. cum n car. 

7 Brune^ 206*. Pro xiii hid. se defend. Terra est xv car. In dominio v 

hid. et ibi sunt 11 car. et aliae 11 poss. ere. Ibi viii vill. cum nil bord. 

et VII sochis qui tenent nil hid. habent nil car. et adhuc vn poss. fieri. 
9 Carletom^ 202^. in hid. Terra vni car. In dominio i hid. et dim. et ibi 

sunt II car. et xii vill. cum ii bord. habent vi car. 
10 ChmgestoHj i89\ i hid. et in virg. Ten a est il car. In dominio est una 

et unus vill. et in bord. cum i car. 

II Cotekam^ i^\\ Pro x hid. se defend. Terra est viii car. In dominio vi 

hid. et I car. Ibi xvi vill. et X cot. cum vi car. 
13 Crochaium^ 202*. vi hid. Terra est IX car. et dim. In dominio in hid. 
et ibi sunt il car. et tertia pot. fieri. Ibi vn vill. cum vn bord. et n 
cot. habent in car. et adhuc in et dim. poss. fieri. 

13 Cumbertone^ 189^. Ibi ii et dim. Terra est v car. In dominio sunt duae 

et tertia potest fieri. Ibi vn vill. et v bord. cum n car. 

14 Dodinion^ I9i\ v hid. Terra est vni car. In dominio n hid. et dim. et 

ibi in car. Ibi xxiiii vill. cum v car. Ibi vin sochi de i hida. 

16 Ely^ 192*. Pro X hid. se defend. Terra xx car. In dominio v hidae et ibi 

V car. et vi potest fieri. Ibi xl vilL quisque xv acr. cum xiiil car. 

17 EUsmordt^ I92\ Ibi ix nidae et i viig. et v acr. Terra xxii car. In 

dominio nil hidae et ibi in car. et quarta potest fieri. Ibi xix vilL et 
XVII bord. et i franc, habens in virg. Hi simul xviii car. habent 

18 Fordham^ 189^. Pro v hid. et dim. se defend. Terra x car. In dominio 

II car. et ilii adhuc poss. fieri. Ibi vi vill. et xv bord. de xv acris cum 
nil car. 

19 Etcelfrrde^ 191*. Pro ix hid. et xxiiii acris se defendit. Terra est xi car. 

In dominio v hidae et ibi sunt in car. Ibi xx vill. et vn bord. cum vni 
car. 

20 Foxtttme^ 193*. v hid. et xl acr. Terra est vni car. In dominio i hida 

et XL acr. et ibi sunt n car. Ibi xvi vill. et xi bord. cum vi car. 

21 GranitseUy 196*. 11 hid. et in virg. Terra est vi car. In dominio sunt 

III et in vill. et dim. cum xin bord. et xvi cot. habent in car. 

22 GnUaditu^ 191 ^ Pro v hid. se defend. Terra est IX car. In dominio n 

hidae et dim. et ibi I car. et n poss. fieri. Ibi vin vill. et in bord. cum 

VI car. 



330 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

CAMBRIDGBSHIRB— fiW/. 

No. 

23 HelU^ 192*. Ibi II hidae. Terra est V car. In dominio X hid. et i viig. et 

X ac. et ibi in car. Ibi x vilL cum 11 car. 

24 HicteUiy 196^. Ill hid. Terra est ix car. In dominio I hid. et dim. et ibi 

sunt III car. et vi Till, cum x bord. habent vi car. 

25 HarduUy I9I^ III hid. et I virg. et xii acras. Terra est vi car. In 

dominio l hid.et dim. et xii acras et ibi sunt li car. Ibi vii tUI. cum 
XIII car. 

26 Haslingefelde^ 197*. v hidse. Terra est vi car. In dominio sunt duae et 

VIII vill. cum XVIII cot habent iiii car. 

27 Havochestun^ 191*. Pro viii hid. et dim. se defend. Terra est xii car. 

In dominio v hidse et ibi sunt nil car. et xvi vill. et nil bord. cum viii 
car. 

28 Lindane^ 192*. Ibi nil hidae. Terra est vi car. In dominio li hidae et 

dim. et ibi Xiil car. Ibi ii sochi et xiiii vill. cum il car. 

29 LUtUport^ I9I^ Tenet Abbas de Ely pro n hid. et dim. Terra est vi 

car. In dominio I hida et ibi n car. Ibi xv vill. et viii cot. cum nil 
car. 

30 Melhaumif I9I^ li hidae et i virg. terrae. Terra est v car. In dominio 

I hid. et I virg. et ibi l car. et dim. et dim. potest fieri Ibi vi vill. et ix 
bord. cum in car. 

31 Pampisford^ 191*. ii hidae et in virg. et dim. Terra est VI car. In 

dominio i hid. et i viig. et dim. et ibi sunt 11 car. Ibi xii vill. et v 
bord. cum nil car. 

32 PafewonU^ 195*. Ibi v hidae. Terra est vii car. In dominio II hidae et 

dim. et ibi sunt il car. Ibi x vill. et v bord. cum v car. 

33 Suafam, I90^ in hid. Terra est v car. In dominio i hida et in virg. et 

ibi sunt ii car. et v vill. et n bord. cum in car. 

34 Stow^ 192^. II hid. Terra est v car. In dominio li car. sunt et v vill. et 

VI bord. cum in car. 

35 Stretham, 191^. Pro v hid. se defend. Terra est IX car. In dominio in 

hid. etibi nil car. Ibi xii vilL quisque x acr. et xi vill. de i hida hi 
habent v car. 

36 Trumpinione, 202*. II hid. Terra est in car. In dominio i hid. et i car. 

et nil villani cum i bord. v cot cum n car. 

37 Trepeslau^ 191*. vi hid. et dim. Terra est viii car. In dominio in hidae 

et ibi sunt III car. Ibi xii villani et v bord. cum v car. 

38 Warateuordey I93^ II hid. et li part unius virg. Terra est in car. In 

dominio i hid. et li part, unius virg. et dim. car. est ibi et alia dim. pot. 
fieri. Ibi II cot et xv bord. cum ii car. 

39 Waraiinget I90^ Ibi nil hid. et dim. Terra est vii car. In dominio in 

hid. et ibi il car. et adhuc duae poss. fieri. Ibi vi vill. et in bord. cum 
III car. 

40 IVinepoly 194^ li hid. et dim. et 11 virg. et dim. Terra est in car. In 

dominio II hid. et ibi I car. et adhuc dim. potest fieri. Ibi 11 vill. cum 
I bord. habent I car. et dim. 
4t Wicham^ I95\ Pro vii hid. se defend, et modo pro v hid. Terra est xii 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 331 

CAMBRIDGBSHIttK— r^lf/. 
No. 

car. In dominio ill hid. et III car. et quarta pot fieri. Ibi XI vill. 
cam VIII bord. habent viii car. 
41 Wruilingkam^ I9I^ Pro vii hid. se defendit. Terra est vil car. In 
dominio iiii hid. et ibi 11 car. Ibi xii viU. cum v car. 

43 WUbertinu^ 192*. Ibi V hidae. Terra est vii car. In dominio III hid. et i 

viig. et ibi iii car. Ibi iiii sochi et IX vilL cam liii car. Ibi villi cot. 
et vii servi. 
The seune, Inqaisitio Eliensis, p. 506 (Public Records Print) : Wilbertona 
pro V hid. se defendit. VI car. ibi est terra nil car. et ill hid. et una 
▼irg. in dominio iiii car. hom. IX vill. quisque X acr. et nil alii vill. de 
una virgata. 

44 T€V£rsAam, 20I^ in hid. et dim. Terra est Iill car. et dim. In dominio 

II hidse et ibi sunt 11 car. Ibi v vill. cum xvii bord. hab. 11 car. et dim. 




332 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



A Domesday Geidable Hide (or carucate) appears to be 120 acta of land 
Angltcus numerus was always^ and the idU shift 









Hides in Domesday 


Area of Tenants' Land 


Tenants-Ten. j 


D.Bk. 


MS. 

(lee 


Name 






































ante) 




No. 


Lord's 


Tenant 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 


Total 


No. in 
D.Bk. 


Aresd 
each 




Folio 


Cambs. 
















1 












(Of ISO) 










' 


190* 


LE 


Belesham . 


9 


5 


4 


480 


480 


960 


12 


80 


192* 


RC 


Burw^U . 


10(1 


•3h 
+ *40» 


•6| 


800 


400 


1440 


12 


120 










flv) 






+ 
























240 










194* 


HR 


Abintone 


5 


24 


2* 


3a> 


__ 


300 


5 


60 




20^ 


HR 


Barton 


3i 


3 


4 


60 


30 


90 


3 


30 




194* 


HR 




♦2i 
+ 24- 


+ 24- 


•2 


240 


48 


288 


3 


96 






HR 


Barrenton . 


1} 


I 


\ 


80 


80 


160 


2 


80 








Pre D.Bk. 







80 


16 + 


192 


2 


96 


















0^ 










193* 




3 course . 


2 


I 


I 


120 


84- 
64 


192 


2 


69 




TOCf^ 


HR 


Brune . 


n 


5 


4 + 4 


960 


960 


10 


90 






















I 


60 




202* 


HR 


Carlton 


3 


U 


V 


180 


180 


360 


6 


60 




189* 


HR 


Chingeston . 


i*3v 


I 


90 


— 


2° 


I 


?? 




191* 


HR 


Cottenham . 


10 


6 


4 


480 


— 


480 


6 


80 




202* 


HR 


Crochestune. 


6 


3 


3 


360 


— 


360 


6 


60 




i89'» 


HR 


Cumbertone. 


4 


il 


I 


120 


— 


120 


2 


60 




191^ 


LE 


Dodinton 


*S 


4 


2* 


300 


— 


300 


5 


60 




192- 


LE 


Ely . . 


♦10 


•5 


•5 


600 


120 
+ 360 


1,080 


2 
12 


108. 

72 1 




192^ 


RC 

*273 
HR 
482 


EUesworth . 


*9+iv 

+ 5* 


4 


5+iv 
+ 5* 


635 


315 


945 


15 
3 


45 
90 




189'* 


HR 


Fordham 


5i 


4 


li 


180 


— 


180 


4 


45 




I9I' 


LE 


Escelforde . 


9(1 
+ 24') 


•5 


•4 


480 


96 


576 


8 


72 




193' 


HR 


Foxetune 


+ *40* 


♦i 

+♦40^ 


•4 


480 


96 


576 


6 


96 




196* 


HR 


Grantesete . 


2 + 3V 


2 


3v 


60 


30 


90 


3 


30 





ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



333 



iaxid^ and therefore coiled * infra hidamj The surplusage caused by the 
was sometimes, untaxed, and therefore * extra hidam,* 





Tenants' Virgates 


No. 
(«e 
ante) 


- 




No. in 
each 
tcna 


Total 
Now 


Sue of 
ditto 


Size in 
MS. 


No. in 
one 
hide 


Infr. 
hid. 


hid. 




4 


48 


20 


20 


6 


20 


20 


I 


There are just 48 virgates in MS. L.E. 
See/Mrf, ^ Villanus' and ' Semis' 




34 


40 


36 


•30 


4 
6 


30 
20 


6 

4 
+ 
12 


2 


• By the greater hundred. The real vir- 
gate was a4, but the manor was in a 3 
coorse, and it had become 36, so the 49} 
viHams of D^Bk. means ^a (i| virgatesX 
The two Churches had two virgates. 
See H. R. p. 499, »«. V 




2 
4 


10 

3 
12 


30 
30 
24 


30 
30 
24 


% 


30 
20 

24 
20 


10 

4 


3 

4 
5 


• By greaur hundred, but the sixth * extra 
hidam.' 4 car. of 06. Gone into a 3 
course. s8 villani or 16 




2 
2 


4 

4 


40 
48 


40 
•40 


6 
6 


20 
20 


20 
28 


6 


* By greater hundred 


2 
i 


6 


32 


•40 
or 


1' 


32 
20 


16 
12 


— 






1} 


32 


30 


30 


4 


30 


— 


7 






2 

3 
4 

2 
2 

s 


12 
3 

24 
12 

4 
25 


30 
30 
20 

30 
30 
12 


30 
30 
20 
30 
30 
12 


4 
4 
6 

4 
4 
5 


30 

30 
20 

30 

30 

12 

+ 12 


30 


9 
10 
II 
12 
13 
14 


Inq.C.C.|vifg.»so 
H. R. p. 4091 a hides=a4o 

The acreage no doubt by the greater hun- 
dred as the virgate is la*, and the soch- 
manni had the surplus ' ex hi' 




il 


30 


36 


36 


6 


20 


16 


15 


acris' of taxed Und are reallv 'quisque 
de xvf II acris' in acreage : added to this 
there are 360 of idle shfft ' extra hidam ' 
in acreage. Note that 30 by the greater 


11 


3ii 

+ 5* 


30 


30 


6 


20 


10 


17 


• Compare H.R. and R.C. Tenants 7} 
hides of 90 + a| of 108 




'i 

2 


6 
16 


$ 


36 


4 
4 


30 
30 


6 


18 
19 


* By greater hundred 34 of a4 




2i 


16 


* 


36 


4 


30 


6 


20 


* Anglico numero. 8 car. of 96 




li 


4i 


20 


30 


6 


20 


10 


21 


lanus' 



334 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

A Domesday GeidahU 









Hides in Domesday 


Area of Tenants' Land 


Tenants* Terra 




D. Bk. 


MS. 
(see 


Nam* 






































ante) 




No. 


Loni's 


Tenant 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 


Total 


No. in 
t>. Bk. 


Area of 
each 1 


Folio 




Cambs. 
(continuid) 






(Ofiio) 














191* 


L£ 


GraUdene . 


•5 


•2i 


*2l 


360 




360 


6 
or 5 


60 
or 72 




192* 


LE 


HeUla 


a 


I+v 

+ 10' 


^ + 20- 


80 


80 


160 


2 


80 




196- 


HR 


Hecteslai . 


•3 
432 


1 

+60 


I* 


180 


12 


192 


6 


32 




191* 


LE 


Hardwick . 


3 + v 

+ I2» 


+ 12* 


+ 1V 


200 


200 


400 


2 


120 ' 

80 , 


i9r 


HR 


Haslingfield 


4j 


2 


3, 


360 


— 


360 




90 




191* 


EM 


Havocbestun 


•s 


♦3i 


420 


84 


504 




36 
























72 




192* 


LE 


Lindona 


4 


2i 


14 


180 


180 


360 




90 
+ 90 




191* 


LE 


Littleport 


2i 


I 


♦«4 


180 


72 + 
180 
180 


432 




108 
















180 


360 




90 




191* 


EM 


Melbourne 


2+ IV 


1 + IV 


I 


120 


120 


240 




80 




191* 




Pampisford 


2 


I 


li 


180 


180 


360 




90 




195' 


HR 


Papworth 


+ 3|v 
5 


'% 


21 


300 





300 




60 




190* 


EM 


Swaffham 


3 


I 
+ 3V 


I + l V 


150 


•~~ 


ISO 




60 
30 




192* 


HR 


Stow 


2 


I 


I 


120 


— 


120 




40 




191* 


LE 


Stretham 


S 


3 


2 


240 


240 


480 




66 




202* 


HR 


Trampington 


2 


I 


I 


120 





120 




60 




I9i» 


LE 


Triplow 


•5i 


3 


2i 


300 


— 


300 




90 




193* 


HR 


Warateuorde 


2 + §V 


i+|v 


I 


120 





120 




60 




190* 


EM 


Waratingc 


4i 


3 


•14 


180 


36 


216 




72 




194* 


HR 


Winepol 


•2 + 

♦2iv 


•a 


♦2iv 


100 


20 


120 


li 


So 




195* 




Wicham 


5 


3 


2 


240 


240 


480 




60 




191* 


HR 


Wivelingham 


7 


4 


3 


360 




360 




60 
120 




192* 


LE 


Wilburton 


♦s 


3(1 + 1 

V) 360 

+ 72 


♦2 


240 


144 

+ 
48 


432 


4 


loS 




20P 


HR 


Teversham 


3i 


2 


'i 


180 




180 


2i 


72 





ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



335 



Hide, 6*^.- 


-«?«/. 
















Tenanls' Viixate* 


No. 
(sec 
ante) 







Nam 
each 
terra 


Totol 
No. 


Sue 

of 

ditto 


Size 

in 

MS. 


No. in 
one 
hide 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 




2 

4 


12 

or lo 
8 


30 
0136 

20 


3'^ 
20 


4 
12 


30 
10 


6 
10 


22 
23 


* Asglioo nomera Note a virg. of 30 hy 
the greater hundred is 36 by the less, 
and 5 of 7a = 360 and xo of 36 s xa of 
M ; and on referring to H.R. p. 535, and 
MS. E.L. it appears the land was wara, 
so there woold be twice the amount of 
land, and villains 34 instead of la 




I 


6 


32 


32 


4 


30 


2 


24 


* Anglico nnmero. 3 course 9 car. of 48. 
Tenant had is* and the Lord had 60 
*«x.hi.' 




9 


20 


20 


20 


12 


10 


10 


2S 






12 
21 


30 
24 


30 
24 


% 


30 
20 


4 


26 
27 






l8 


20 


20 


6 


20 


20 


28 






4i 


i8 


24 


24 


6 


20 


28 


29 


* Anglico nomero, and commoo hundred. 




4i 

2 

3 


i8 
6 

12 


20 
40 
30 


40 


6 

4 


20 
30 


20 
30 


30 
31 






2 

2 

4 


lO 

5 
6 

20 


30 
30 

20 
24 


30 
30 

20 
24 


4 
4 

6 
12 


30 
20 

20 

10 


14 


32 

33 

34 
35 


This was probably wara, and double the 
quantity of land and villains. See 

Probably by the greater hundred, like 
Bancoton. 




2 
2 

2 

4 


4 

lO 

4 

12 


30 

30 

18 


30 
30 

18 


4 

4 

4 
8 


30 
30 

30 

IS 


3 


36 

37 

38 
39 


* Sic. Hamilton's Inq. Com. Cant. p. zo6. 

There are just 34 half virg. in H. R. 
S43.="virg. 

* Anglico numero. 6 villains of 36=12 




2 


3 


40 


40 


3 


40 


— 


40 


• Anglico numero, i.e. 48, the sixth part 
being ' extra hidam.' 




4i 


12 
12 


40 
30 


30 


6 

4 


20 
30 


20 


41 
42 






I8 


24 


24 


9 


i3i 


'05 


43 


See the detaib of this Manor posL 
* Anglico numero. 




3 


7J 


24 


24 


5 


24 


— 


44 





336 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

No. Gloucestershire. 

55 Aldersorde, I65^ Ibi xi hidae. In domiiiio sant III cmr. et xxi vilL et 

V. bord. et ii francig. cum xv car. 

56 Bocheland^ 165^ Ibi X hid. In dominio sunt ill car. et xxii vilh et 

VI bord. cum xii car. 

57 Frowecestere^ i65\ Ibi v hidse. In dominio sunt iiii car. et VIII vill. et 

VII bord. cum vii car. 

58 Boxeweile, i6$\ Ibi v hidae. In dominio sunt 1 1 car. et xii viil. et 

1 Radchenista habentes xii car. 



A Domesday GeldabU Hide (or carueate) appears to be 120 acres of land 
the Anglicus Humerus was always^ and the idle shift 



D. Bk. 


MS. 




ante) 


165* 


PG 


165* 


PG 


165* 


PG 


165* 


PG 


165* 


PG 


i6s» 


PG 


165* 


PG 


i6s» 


PG 


165* 


PG 





Hides in Domesday 


Area of Tenants' Land 


Tenanu' Terne 


NmoM 


No. 


Lotd-t 


Tenant 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 


Total 


Nain 
D. Bk. 


Area of 
each 


Gloucester- 


















shire 


















Aldersorde . 


♦11 


•3 


♦8 


q6o 


192 


1.152 


13 

2 


72 
108 


Bocheland . 


♦10 


•4 
3car 


•6 


720 


144 


864 


12 


72 


Frowcester . 


♦5 


♦3* 


•if 


200 


40 


240 


I 

6 


24 
36 


Boxwell 


♦5 
720 


•l 
"44 


•4 


480 


96 


576 


12 


48 


Hamme 


1,008 


•3i 
3 car 


♦3i 


420 


«4 


504 


7 


72 


Duntesbum . 


5 


3 


2 


240 




240 


1 


48 


Ledene 


4 


2 


2 


240 


240 


480 


60 


Amenel 


♦2 




♦2 


240 


48 


288 


3 


96 


Culne 


4 


♦2 


♦2 


240 


48 + 
288 


576 


12 


48 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



337 



No. Gloucbstbrshirk-^mA 

59 Homme, i6$\ Ibi vii hid. In dominio sunt ill car. et xii vill. et 

iiii bord. cum vii car. 

60 Duniesbum^ i65\ v hid. In dominio ill car. et viii vill. cum v car. 

Ibi XVI send. 

61 Ledme, i65\ Ibi mi hidae. In dominio 11 car. et viii vill. cum viii car. 
6a' Ommii, I65^ 11 hid. Ibi 11 car. et v vill. cum iii car. 

63 Cultu^ I65^ Ibi II II hidae. In dominio sunt in car. et xi vill. et 
VII bord. cum xii car. 



taxfdy and therefore called ' infra hidam* The surplusage caused by 
was sometimes^ untaxed^ and therefore ' extra hidam* 





Tenants' Virsates 








Nb. in 
each 
tena 


Toeal 
No. 


S>e 

of 

ditto 


Stae 

in 

MS. 


No.b 
one 
hide 


Infr. 
hid. 


Ext 
hid. 


No. 
ante 


— 






24 


48 


48 


3 


40 


8 


55 


All the Gloucester virgates leem to be 
Anglico numero 




2 


24 


36 


36 


4 


30 


6 


56 


* By neater hundred 3 car. of 193=576=: 
480 Dy greater hundred 




y 


10 


24 


24 


6 


20 


4 


57 


* Anglico numero. Lord's car. 4 of zao 




12 


48 


48 


3 


40 


8 


58 


* By greater hundred. The lord had 
3 car. of 7a 




IJ 


ID} 


48 


48 


3 


40 


8 


59 


* By greater hundred. Lord 3 car. of 
x68. VilUinsheldivirg. 




2 

2 
I 


10 

8 
6 
12 


24 

60 

48 


24 

48 


5 
4 
3 

5 


24 
30 
40 
24 


1 

24 


60 
61 
62 
63 


* Aoglico numero 

* Anglico numero, 3 Lord's car. of xgz 



VOL. I. 



1 



338 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

DORSBTSHIRB. 

No, 

158 Wintrctmme, Gddb. pro 11 hid. et una virg. terrae. Terra est I car. et 

dimid. In dominio i car. cum i servo et 11 villani et 11 bord. cam 
dimid car. 
Idem. Exon D. p. 50. Redd, gildum pro ii hid. et una virgata ; has poss. 
arare I car. et dim. Inde habet Uxor hujus 11 hid. dim. virg. minus et 

I car. in dominio et villani I virg. et dim. et dim. car. 

159 Pomacanola^ 83^ Geldb. pro v hid. Terra est iiii car. In dominio sunt 

II car. et iiii servi et iiii villani et v bord. cum ii car. 

Idem. Exon D. 51. Reddit gildum pro v hidis has poss. arare iiii car. 
Inde habet W. ill hidas et II car. in dominio et villani 11 hidas et 

II car. 

160 Tarente^ 83^. Geldb. pro v hid. Terra est III car. In dominio est I car. 

et IIII servi et II villani et IIII bord. cum i car. 
Idem, Exon D. p. 52. Redd, gildum pro v hid. ; has poss. arare III car. 
Ibi habet R. iiii hid. et dimidia in dominio et i caruca et villani dimid. 
hid. et I car. 

161 Retpole^ 77^ Geldb. pro in hid. Tena est in car.; de ea sunt in dominio 

medietas et ibi I car. cum I servo et i villo et v bord. habent ii car. 

162 Eltotu^ 78^ Geldb. pro xviii hid. Terra est x car. De ea sunt in 

dominio ix hid. et una virg. terrx et ibi in car. et viii servi et xvii vill. 
et XII bord. cum vii car. 
Idem, Exon D. 37. Reddidit gildum pro xviii hidis ; has poss. arare x 
car. De his habet Abbas ix hidis et i virg. et in car. in dominio et 
villani ix hidas i virg. minus et vii car. 

163 Portesan^ *i&, Geldb. pro xii hid. Terra est IX car. De ea sunt in 

dominio v hidae. terne et ibi nil car. et xii servi et xii villani et x bord. 
cum V car. 
Idem, Exon D. p. 37. Reddidit gildum pro xii hidis ; has poss. arare ix 
car. Inde habet Abbas v hidas et nil car. in dominio et villani vii hidas 
et V car. et in bta mansione pertinet I virg. terrse quae die obitus regis 
Edwardi erat in victu monachorum et Hugo filius Gripponis injuste sibi 
accepit et adhuc uxor sua eam vi detinet. 

164 Osmantone, 78*. Geldb. pro X hidis. Terra est x car. De ea sunt in 

dominio nil hidae et ibi II car. et in servi et xvi villani et vii bord. cum 
VI car. 

165 Middletone^ 78^. Geldb. pro xxiiii hid. Terra est xviii car. De ea sunt 

in dominio x hidae una virg. minus et ibi li car. et vi servi et xxvii 
villani et XX bord. cum xiii car. 

166 Liscome^ 78'. Geldb. pro in hidis. Terra est ii car. De ea sunt in 

dominio ii hidae et ibi i car. et n servi et in villani et v bord. cum 
I car. 

167 Pidere^ 82^. Geldb. pro x hidis. Terra est vi car. In dominio sunt 

III car. et 1 1 servi et xii villani et xii bord. cum in car. 

Idem, Exon D. p. 46. Gueldabat pro x hid. et potest arari per vi car. et 
habet vi hid. et l virgam in dominio et habet in car. et villani ejus 
habent in hid. et in virgas et habent in carr. et sunt in ilia terra xii 
villani et xii bordarii- 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 339 

DO&SBTSHIRS— r^fl/. 

Na 

168 Pokham^ 8i^ Geldb. pro X hidis. Terra est viii car. In dominio sont 

III car. et vi send et xiiii vill. et xxv bord. cum vii car. 
Idem. £xon D. 42. Reddidit Gildum pro X hidis; has poss. arare 

VIII car. Inde habet W. liii hidas et i virg. et vi agros et in car. 

in dominio et villani v hidas et dimidiam et nil agros et vii car. 
Hampshire. 

169 RipU^ 5o^ Geld, pro V hid. Modo pro 11 hid. Terra est 11 car. In 

dominio est una et viii bord. et nil senr. cum 11 car. De isto manerio 
III hidse in foresta regis et totum nemus. 

170 Lamere^ 43*. Tunc et modo se defend, pro ill hid. Terra est v car. In 

dominio est una et vi villani et in bord. cum in car. 

171 Hentu$u^ 51*. Tunc pro una hida modo pro in virg. una est in foresta. 

Terra est ill car. ibi vi viU. habent n car. 

172 Depedene^ 5I^ Tunc se defendit pro v hid. modo pro n hid. et non geld. 

nisi pro una quia in hidae sunt in foresta. Terra est nil car. Ibi sunt 
nil villani et xv bord. cum v car. 

173 Aamgre^ 49^. Se defendit pro una hida et una virg. Terra est 

nil car. In dominio sunt n et vin villani et vi bord. cum in car. 
et II servi. 



340 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



A Domesday Gddable hide (or carucate) appears to be 120 acres of land 
the Anglicus numerus was always^ and the idle shift 









Hides in Domesday 


Area of Tenanto' Land 


Tenants' Terr* 




D.Bk. 


Exon. 
D. 


Name 
























No. 


Lonl's 


Tenant 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 


Total 


Nain 
D.Bk. 


Area of 
each 




Folio 




Dorsetshire 






(Of IK.) 














83» 


50 


Wintrebume 


180 
+ 36 


:a 


•1 


45 


9 


54 


\ 


loS 




83' 


51 


Pomacanola 


4o 
3 


3 


li 


192 


— 


192 


2 


96 




83' 


52 


Tarentc 


h 


36 





36 


i 


72 










360 


324 
















77* 


34 


Retpole 


h 


!L 


li 


180 


"— 


180 


2 


90 




78- 


37 


Eltone 


♦10 
1200 


•s 

+ I V 


•5 

-1 V 


560 


112 


672 


7 


96 








+ 


640 






















240 


•I-I28 






















ex hi 


ex hi 
















78» 


37 


Portesan . 


♦9 
1080 

+ 
216 


♦3J 
450 

+ 
90 


•Si 


630 


126 


756 


7 


108 




78* 


39 


Osmantone . 


10 


4 


6 


720 


— 


720 


6 


120 




78. 


40 


Miteltone . 


1800 


2 
240 


>3 


1560 


— 


1560 


14 

+ I V 


108 










+ 


+ 








i.e. 


13 


120 ; 








360 


360 




















ex hi 


ex hi 












i 


78- 


40 


Liscome 


2 


I* 


* 


80 


— 


80 


I 


1 

80 ; 





ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



341 



iaxtd^ and therefore called ' infra hidam^ The surplusage caused by 
Ufos sometimes^ untaxed^ and therefore * extra hidam* 



Tenanu' Virgates 



No. in 
each 
Terra 



No. I ditto hide 



4 

I* 
6 

14 



4 
2i 



24 
32* 



4 4 

I 



36 

48 
24 
30 
4« 

36 



3? 
48 

30 



20 



Infr. 
hid. 



Extr. 

hid. 



2J 

5 

4 
3. 



4 

2* 



30 

48 
24 
30 
40 

30 



32 
48 

30 



20 



No. 
ante 



158 

159 
160 
161 
i6a 

163 



164 

165 



166 



The returns in this county are peculiar. In most 
of the other counties the standard eddabie 
hide, or carucate, b placed first, and tnen the 
number of term therein is stated: for in- 
stance, in Rutland, fol. 90^^ we have the 
entry, 'in Alfnodeston wapentake sunt 11 
Hundrez. In unoquoque xii carucatae ad 
^eldum et in unoquoque xxiiii caruce.' But 
in Dorset, Middlesex, Yorkshire, Wiltshire, 
Sussex, &c., the returns are the reverse 
of this : the ' terra ad carucam ' appears to 
be the standard seldated area of xao^ : and 
the word 'hida' m Dorsetshire, ftc.and the 
term 'car. terne ad geldum' in Yorkshire, 
are used to express the area of one plough- 
land in the manor, so that the terms 'terra 
est car.* in Dorset, and 'car. potest ibi ere' 
in Yorkshire, imply what the geldable hide 
implies in other counties, viz. xao* of taxed 
land. Exon. Domesday should be read in 
connexion with the following cases. 

* Anglico numero : z} car. of 244 (x 30+34)= 9x6 : 
vixgates four in X44 of 36. The geldable 
land 3 hides of 90+36 'ex. hL' (being the 
sixth taken oiT by the Commissioners) zo8= 
90 Anglico numero. 

The Lord s car. of X44. Five avenc* hides or 
car. of 96 

Five average hides or car. of 7a 
Three average hides or car. of zto 

* Anglioo numero : xa hides reduced to xo. Two 
'extra hidam' x8 (15 Anglico numero) of 
80 s X440, so x; of 96 (80 Anglico numero) 
B x,44o, 40 Anguco numero s 48 



Twelve average hides or car. of 90 Anglico 

numero, Le. xo8 s x,a96 
* Anglico numero 



^ Anglico numero b 28 o< x3o, of which 15 only 
are taxed, the Lord having 3 and the tenants 
X3. There were twenty-four hides or car. of 
00, Le. 3oxxo8. The Lord had 340 (+960 
*^ extra hidam "X His holding was 600, ue. 
xo X (xo8 minus x v.X The tenants had X4 
hides of X08 (90 Axiglico numero) + x virgate 
s 2560 or X3 car. By this arrangement the 
Lord had the advantage of all the land 'extra 



Three car. or bids of 80 s 240 s 

of X30 



a hides or car. 



i 



342 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

A Domesday GMabk 



D. Bk. 



Elzon. 
D. 



Folio 
82» 



8i^ 



46 



Name 



Dorsetshire 
(carUinued) 
Pidere 



Pidere 
geldable 



42 Poleham 



Hides in DooMsday 



No. 



♦6 
720 

+ 
144 



6 
720 



Moit likely 



♦8 
960 

+ 

192 
ex hi 



Lord's 



•3} 
450 

+ 

90 



3i 
450 



3i 



Tenant 



♦2i 



(Ofiao) 
2i 



4? 



♦3 
432 



Area of Tenantt' Land 



Infr. 

hid. 



270 



270 



528 



5* 



Extr. 

hid. 



S4 



Total 



324 



270 



528 



600 



120 



Tenanu' Terne 



No. in 
D.Bk. 



5i 



720 



Area of 
each 



108 



90 



96 
144 



No. 
333 



334 



Yorkshire. 

Estorpy 307**. Ad hoc Manerium pertinet soca htec In Doncastre il car. 
In Wormesford i car. In Ballebi 11 car. et Geureshale 11 car. Scite- 
lesuuorde iiii car. Oustrefeld ii car. Alcheslei 11 car. Simul. xvcaruc. 
ad geld, ubi possunt ere xviii camcse. Modo in dominio i car. et 
xxiiii vill. et XX VII bord. et XL sochi. Hi habent xxvii car. 

Rodreham^ 307**. Habet Acun I maner. de v carucat. ad geldum ubi post, 
ere ill car. Nigel habet in dominio I car. et viii vill. et lii bord. 
habentes 11 car. et dimid. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



343 



hide^ &'C. — ctmf. 



I 



Tenants* Virgates 



No. in 
each 
Terra 



i} 



Total 
No. 



22 



30 



Size 

of 

ditto 



36 



30 



24 



No. in 
one 
hide 



Infr. 
hid. 



30 



30 



20 



Extr. 



No. 
ante 



167 



168 



* Anglico niunero. There were (xo Anglico 
namero^ Le.) xa hides or car. of 73. The x^ 
acres extra hidam were very likely entirely u 
the Lord's car., who had 3 car. of z8o or 
6 (60 + 30X, If 144 is token from 540 it leaves 
396. to which if the tenants' 334 is added, it 
makes 730, or 6 hides of geldable land. The 
virgate of the geldable hide was 30, the areal 
virgate 36. llie 396* is six hid. or car. of 
60 + ail area! virgate of 36. The tenants' 33^ 
is 3 hid. or car. of (60 Anglico numero) 
79 B 3x6 + 3 area] virgates of 36. 



This is another solution, taking the geldable land 
only, and taking the virgate to be the virgate of 
the average car. and not of the geldable hide, 
Le. x8*. There were 730 acres in 10 hides or 
car., .*. each car. was 73 acres. The Lord's 
6hid2+x vii:^. =6x73+ 18=450. The villains' 
2 hidx + 3 virg. = 3 x 7a + 54 = 370. It will 
oe seen that 450, 3701 90^ 301 Anglico numero s 
S40» 3*41 108, 36. 

There were 8 geldable car. of Z3o contained in 
zo hides or car. of 96. The tenants held ori- 
ginally 5^ car. or hides ofod = 538. 

The Lord originally had 4 of 96 s 38^ + 36(1 virg. 
of his car. of 144) + Z3*, i.e. izo* Anglico 
numero) total 433, or 3 car. of X44 (120, Anglico 
numeroX but it apoears firom Exon. D. that the 
tenants had ^ of tnis xa*. It will be observed 
that the virg. of 36^ + xa makes the ^ hide or 
car. of 96. 

This a the case on which Kemble in his ' Saxons 
in England,' App. B. 490, founds his general 
assertion that a hide was 40W But he wronglv 
takes for granted that the virgate of the Lord's 
car. is the same as the virgate of tlw tenants' 
car.— a terra of 80 and f terra 40^ Anglico 
numero s 96 and 48 respectively. 

Most likely * Anglico numero, and 10 car. Anglico 
numero = X3 car. of 96. The surplusage caused 
in the tenants' land by the A. N., viz. 199^, gives 
48* to the sk car. or hides of 06, nuJung 6 of 
Uiem, and gives a seventh plough of 144. 



No. 

335 
336 
337 
338 



YORKSHIKB^-^M/. 

Chercantf 307*. viii carucat. ad geld, et llil car. possunt ere. In dominio 

II car. et xii vill. cum iiii car. 
Ddton^ 304'. Ad geld, xii carucate et vi car. poss. ere. Nunc habet in 

dom. I car. et xii vill. cum vii car. 
Cairicty 310^. Ad geld. X carucate et x car. poss. ere. In dominio 

VI camcat et xilii vilL et vi bord. cum iv car. 
Fifugala, 312*. Ad geld, vi caruc. et IV car. poss. ere. Ibi xiii villani 

habentes vii car. 



344 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

Yorkshire— r^/. 
No. 

339 Chipesch^ 315*. xviii camcatas ad geldum et X caruc« possunt ibi ere. 

340 Ettone^ 304*. Ad geldum viii carucatse et iiii car. poss. ere. Ibi viii viUani 

habent v car. 

341 Scanhalla^ 31 5^ iili car. terre ad gdd. Terra in car. In dominio i car. 

et X vill. et V. bord. habentes 111 car. 

342 Farebunut 315^. ii car. terr. et dimid. ad geld, et il car. poss. ibi ere. 

In dominio I car. et nil vill. et in bord. cum i car. 



A Domesday Geldable Hide {or carucaie) appears to be 120 acres of land 
Atigltcus Humerus was alwaySy and the idle shift 



D.Bk. 


Nam« 


Hide] 


1 in Domesday 


Area of Tenants' Land 


Tenants' Temc 




Na 


Lord's 


Tenant 


Infr. 
hid. 


Extr. 
hid. 


Total 


Na in 
D.Bk. 


Area of 
each 






Yorkshire 


















307* 


Estorp Soca 


•15 


♦l* 


I3i 


1620 


324 


1944 


27 


72 




307* 


Rodreham . 


3 


Ii 


Ii 


180 


— 


180 


2i 


72 




3or 
304' 

3io»» 
312^ 


Chercam . 
Delton 
Catrice 
Finegala . 


4. 

6 

10 

4 


2 


2 

3i 
4 
4 


240 
420 
480 
480 


— 


240 
420 
480 
480 


4 
7 

% 


60 

60 

120 

80 




315' 
304* 


Chipesch . 
Ettone 


♦10 

4 


— 


♦10 

4 


1200 
480 


or 
240 


480 
1440 
480 


5 

.1} 

3 

2 


80 
40 

So 

80 

120 

60 




315; 
315* 
315* 


Scanhalla . 
Farebume . 
Nortone . 


3 

2 

♦3 


.;' 


♦2 


^Z2 
96 

240 


^ 


1 


3 

I 
6 


?2 




313' 


Cliftun . 


♦8 




♦8 


960 


480 

+ 


1728 


18 


96 






geldable area . 


8 




8 


960 


S76 
480 


1140 


IS 


96 





ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



345 



No. 
343 

344 



YORKSBIKS— ^Mf/. 

Nortone^ 3I5\ V car. terrae ad geld, ubi poss. ere ill car. In dominio 
II car. et x Till, et xv bord. cum vi car. 

Cliftun^ 3I3\ In Cliftun adjacet soca haec Fuleforde i car. et iii bov. 
Aseri nil car. Chetelsthorp nil car. lAnguelt i car. et dim. Chelchefeld 
II car. et ii bov. Morebi I car. Distone iiii car. Hae iii fuere maneria 
tamen sunt in soca de Cliftun. Simul ad geld, xy carucatae i bov. minus 
et VI II car. possunt ere. 



taxed^ and therefore called * infra hidam' The surplusage caused by the 
was sometimeSy untaxed^ and therefore ' extra hidam* 









renanu' 


Viipues 






No. 






















No. in 


Total 


Size of 


No. in 
one 


Infr. 


Extr. 


ante 






each 1 
terra | 


No. 


ditto 


hide 


hid. 


hid. 






















See remarks on Dorset as to the method 


















of return in that country and this 
* Angliconuinero=i8. The Lord's car. 




3 


71 


24 


6 


20 


4 


333 


















3x6% Le 3 car. of 73, or 9 virgates. 


















30 car. altogether 




3 


8 


24 


S 


24 


— 


334 


The Lord's i car. = si car. of 79, so there 
would be 5 car. of 73 




3 


12 


40 


6 


20 


— 


335 


The Lord had 3 of xso 




2 


14 


30 


4 


30 


— 


336 






3 


12 


40 


4 


30 


— 


337 






2 


12 


40 


3 


20 
+ 20 


■~~ 


338 






;} 


12 


40 


6 


20 


— 


— 












+ 20 










4 


12 


20 


6 


— 


20 


339 


* Anglico Domero 




4 


6o 


20 


6 


20 


— 








fj 


II 


40 


3 


40 


— 


340 


Scar, of 60 




3 


9 


30 


4 


30 


— 


341 


Lord's car. 9a 4 of 90s 360=3 x xao 




4 


4 


24 


5 


24 


— 


342 


Lord's car. 144, i.e. xi of 96 




2 


12 


24 


6 


20 


4 


343 


* Anglico numero. 6 (i*e* 5i Anglico 
numero) of 73=433. Loid 3 car. of 
* 73 




2 


36 


48 
48 


3J 


32 


16 


344 


* Anglico numero : actual area. A bo- 
vate is added to each in order to 
simplify matters. The areal bovate 




2 


30 


— 


— 


— 


— 


of the former in the zso (Anglico nu* 
mero, Le. Z44X and z8 of the latter 
in the geldable hide of x3o. The 


















































geldable portion of the vizgate was 



















33, the areal 48, as at Broctune, ante. 



346 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



V. THE DOMESDAY GELDABLE *HIDA' OR 
'CARUCATA.' 

Supposing, then, that this unit of assessment was one and 
the same all over England, for the purposes of the taxation 
of land producing profit, it could not include any other land 
than terra lucrabUts^ i.e. arable land, pratum^ pieces of silva 
dsidpastura appropriated from the waste and therefore taxed 

This appears from the fact that manors in D. Bk. * defend 
themselves' for so many hides, plus in some cases small 
numbers of acres, a mode of expression which certainly does 
not apply to large extents of forests and wastes. E3^on and 
others must, I think, be ^regiously wrong when they include 
a whole county in the hidation of it, and go so far as to 
talk of hides of many hundreds, or even thousands, of 
acres. They seem to have been perfectly ignorant of the old 
pound-paying units of silver or food, and to have deemed it 
necessary to include the whole of the land in the several 
counties in the geldation contained in D. Bk., whereas we 
have distinct evidence from D. Bk. itself (in the county of 
Huntingdon, for instance) that a considerable portion (of 
arable land even) was extra hidam under the circumstances 
hereafter detailed. In Devonshire, too, and Cornwall a very 
large proportion of the arable was extra hidanty and not (as 
has been suggested) included in hides of an abnormal size. 
It is also to be remarked that the entirety of the lands of 
manors is given in some manors in Yorkshire, and it is clear 
that generally only the terra are geldated. On the other 
hand, appropriated pieces of wara or pasture land were 
certainly taxed, which is sufficiently plain in the entries in 
regard to Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, and other places 
in the Hundred Rolls and D.Bk. Also in D.Bk. itself 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 347 

(Tom. I. fol. 93', Somerset) at Hamitone of 21 hides 
Baldwinus is said to have i hide in communi pastura. 

Cottenham (H.R. vol. ii. p. 409, and D. Bk. igi^ I92^ 
201^) was hidated at the time of the Hundred Rolls and 
D. Bk. at twenty-seven hides. These hides are identified in 
the Hundred Rolls, and separated into hides of arable land 
and hides of pasture, &c. Thus the eleven hides of the 
Abbot and Convent of Croyland are described as ut in terris 
pratis pasturis et mariscis ; and the Hundred Rolls go on 
to say, unde dictus Abbas et Conventus tenent in dominio de 
dictis undecitn hidis duos hidas arabiles^ et quinque hidas in 
pratis, pasturis et mariscis pertinentibus ad predictam villam. 

These hides or pound-paying units of pasture were, no 
doubt, Cottenham Common, but were very different from the 
fens and marshes which adjoined it 

All the uncertainty with regard to this matter of size of 
D. Bk. hides has arisen from the fact that (from the time • 
of Agard down to the present time) antiquaries, having 
stumbled upon allusions in old documents to virgates of sizes 
varying in different places, have multiplied such virgate by 
four, and then called the resulting number of acres a Domes- 
day hide, in such county or place ; but, apart from this, they 
have never a reason for what, in the absence of any, must be 
nothing more than an arbitrary division of land. 

Moreover, few of them in former times (as far as I know) 
had the same opportunity of closely comparing the statements 
in D. Bk. with such old documents and with Court Rolls of 
the same time as we have now. 

I think, however, it can be, and that I have, proved, that 
the Domesday pound-paying unit — i.e. the geldable hide, 
terra ad camcam, or carucata — had a fixed and certain mean- 
ing, and that the perfectly true statements as to the varying 
size of the virgates of the manor (answering as they do to the 
ancient divisions of the pound of silver) are the very means 



348 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

by which the unvarying size of the geldable Hide, &c., in 
D. Bk. may be tested and confirmed. 

An acre of arable land, however, being, as it were, in two 

parts — the one being ad seminandutn^ and the other ad warec- 

tandum — it is most important, for purposes of calculation, to 

observe that in very many manors, particularly in the county 

of Kent, this land warectandum (in other words, the idle shift) 

was extra hidam^ not geldated, and therefore unnoticed in 

D. Bk. Under what circumstances, and why this should 

have been the case, is to be found in the fact that in those 

manors the fallow lay in common, jacet in cammuni ; and an 

acre of such land (with sown land geldated and the fallow 

not) is in the Ely MSS., in some manors, called half an acre 

of wara^ which word, I submit, may be the source from which 

the term ad warectum is derived. This state of things in the 

Domesday of St Paul seems to be referred to by the use of the 

.expression una hida in solanda — le. the geldated hide of 120 

acres, plus the fallow. The non-liability to taxation of fallow 

land when lying in common appears in very many MSS. 

For instance, in Cottonian MSS., Faust B. viii. f. 206, ' Et 

ibidem I carucata terrae continens in se L acras terrae, unde 

duo partes possunt quolibet anno seminari, et valet acra 

quando seminata II denarios. Et tertia pars nihil valet sed 

jacet ad warectam et in communi ' ; and in No. 6,165 of the 

Ad. MSS. at the British Museum, containing an extent of 

the Manor of Littleberri, in Essex, taken at the instance of 

the Crown, where is to be found this entry : ' Et sunt ibidem 

CCXL acrae terrae arabilis quae valet per annum XL* pr. per 

ac. 11^ jquando seiantur, et quando non seiantur, valet per 

annum XX* pr. per ac. i*. Item sunt ibidem CCXL acrae 

terrae arabilis, quarum quaelibet acra valet 11*, quando 

seiantur, et quando non seiantur, nihil valet, quia jacet in 

communi.' 

The MS. is speaking of the lord's land in the open fields ; 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 349 

therefore, if the lord's land therein, when not sown, lay ' in 
communi,' he would not be taxed on his fallow ; on the other 
hand, if the tenants had no right of common over the fallow, 
but it lay * in separali ' for the lord's fold, then their fallow 
would be ' extra hidam ' as far as they were concerned. 

In estimating the quantities under plough, that fact has 
to be borne in mind, and calculations made accordingly. So, 
too, in regard to pasture land where it lay in common, as was 
generally the case, it was untaxed ; thus in vol. ii. of the 
Hundred Rolls, p. 451, at Rampton we read 'dicimus quod 
dominus Robertus de Insula habet in Rampton in dominico 
et in homagio quinque hid;s.et dimidium et XXIIII acrae ut 
in terra pratis pasturis excepto marisco qui est communis,' 
and therefore not taxed. 

The Domesday geldable hide of 120 acres was the kernel 
of Fleta's carucate, which seems to have been composed of the 
sown land, linked with its twin brother, the land ad warec- 
iandum^ and if lying in common when fallow, then extra hydatn. 
This sum total of land ad geldutn^ and land extra hydam, 
appears to have been in two-shift manors, 240 or 288 acres, 
and, in three-course manors, 180 or 216 acres. The carucate 
of 120 acres ad sentinandum + 120 or + 80 acres ad warec- 
tandum was the Kentish solin or sulung ; which was nothing 
more than a carucate consisting of the geldable hide with its 
idle shift very often extra hydam. 

As an authority for this there is the statement quoted in 
the second folio of D. Bk. of Kent : * In communi terra sunt 
cccc acra et dimid.^ qua faciunt ii silinos et dimid' : i.e. 400 
(i^) or 600 acres : also in a charter quoted in a note to the 
General Introduction of D. Bk. fol. xlix we read, ' Terram 
trium aratrorum [or carucarum] quam Cantiani Anglice dicunt 
three swofinges.' 

By the introduction of the three- course system a greater 
amount of land was obtained ad setninandum and therefore 



350 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

ad geldum at the expense of the land ad warectandum : and 
though, apparently, the area of the real Domesday hide, for 
taxational purposes, never varied, as has been supposed, yet 
by the introduction of the three-course system (supposing the 
fallow to be extra Aidam), there might become, in the same 
area, more geldable hides, and consequently more carucates : 
the latter, however, being smaller than before. A greater 
number of geldable hides also, of course, would arise out of 
the same area, if the fallow land was hidated. The prominent 
part that this change of cropping had in fixing the number of 
Domesday hides in areas of wara is shewn in a table at the 
end of the next section of this paper, headed, 'Anglicus 
NumerusV 



VI. THE 'ANGLICUS NUMERUS,' OR NUMBERS 'JUX- 
TA ESTIMATIONEM ANGLORUM' IN RELATION 
TO THE DOMESDAY GELDABLE *HIDA,' * TERRA 
AD CARUCAM,' OR 'CARUCATA.' 

In order to understand this it is needful to explain how 
the MSS. called the Domesday Bk. and the H. IL and the 
succeeding MSS. (such as the Domesday of St. Paul, the Ely 
MSS., and the 'Ramsey Chartulary') differ in character, 
though they agree in substance. Domesday and H. R. were 
MSS. dealing generally with areas of land liable to taxation ; 
the other MSS. deal generally with actual areas of tax- 
able and untaxable land in possession of the lords and their 
men. Again, a document like the Domesday Book was a 
* Schedule ' for the purposes of ascertaining the assessment of 
the whole country, or the number of poimd-paying units 
therein ; so we must naturally think of it as formed on one 
and the same plan of counting throughout the whole, or that 
at least it would have been the aim of the Norman king's 
officers to form it so. The later MSS., on the other hand. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 351 

deal with the actual areas (the 'plenae terrae') belonging to 
their lords, and of necessity speak of such areas according to 
their actual contents in the common Norman numbers of the 
day. The difficulty thus presented to the king's officers (or 
it may be to the juratores of the original returns) by this 
matter of counting is seen at a glance in the following tables 
of areas, shown both in numbers of the common counting 
now in use, and also in numbers of the counting expressed 
by the words *Anglico numero/ or 'juxta estimationem 
Anglorum/ The difficulty really arose in the Anglo-Saxons 
taking twelve strips, while the Normans and Franks had only 
ten, in order to fit in with their respective pounds, so that 
120 acres or pence with the Normans answered to 144 acres 
or pence with the Anglo-Saxons. Nor was this all : 120 
acres of the Normans answered to the 128 of those places 
where the old Mercian division of the pound-paying unit still 
obtained, as I have explained in a former part of the paper. 
So there would be in the Anglo-Saxon pound-paying unit 
|th more area than in the Norman pound-paying unit, and 
in the old Mercian division ^^th more than in the Norman 
pound-paying unit I have not put in a separate table for 
the Mercian division of the pound-paying unit ; it is sufficient 
to say that in such cases y^^th would have to be taken off in 
order to reconcile the areas to the Norman standard. 



352 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



Actual Areas of Acres stated in the Tables. 
Common Coiuitin£ 

Bovate 



Bovate of wara or Common Vir 
gate .... 



Virgate of wara or terra 



Terra 



Domesday geldable hide, terra 
ad car. or carucate 



Terra 



of wara 



30 
32 
36 
48 

54 
60 
72 

75 
90 
96 
108 

120 



144 
160 
180 
192 
216 
240 
288 



The like Areas, but expressed * Joxta estima- 
donem Anglorum/ who therefore would 
not reckon x2o till they had 144. 

5 Bovate 
7i », 

^ u 

10 „ 

I2| M 

I3i 
15 

Common Virgate or Bovate of 
20 wara 

25 >» »t II 

2^ II »i II 

30 II II fi 

40 Terra or Virgate of wara 

45 II I* 

50 

62J Terra 

75 II 
80 .. 

90 

100 Note.— The geldable hide, terra 
ad car. or carucate, is reached, 
not by expanding 100 up to 
120, but by shrinking in favour 
of the Angli, &c., 144 or 128 
to 120 

120 Terra 

I33i » 

ISO It 

160 „ 

180 „ 

200 „ of wara 

240 „ „ 



All these numbers are to be met with in working out the 
Tables I. and II. to my Cambridge paper, and an instance 
of the virgate of 26f is to be found in Picot's fee, 2 H. R. 
468, where } of a virgate is said to be 20 acres. The Mer- 
cian virgate of 32, with the ^^ taken off, would, of course, be 
the Norman 30, and it is quite possible that the common 
vii^ate of 30 in the Hundred Rolls may be cases of this 
sort. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 353 

The Norman king's officers, charged (as no doubt they 
were) with the task of forming (from the primary returns 
sent to them from all parts of the country) an assessment 
which would be of one uniform standard, as to money and 
acreage, were subject to the difficulty which would manifestly 
arise from the three modes of dividing the pound-paying unit, 
and also of the existing methods of dividing the libra or 
pound of silver — i.e. into 288 pence and 240 pence and 256 — 
and also from the difference in the mode of counting between 
the Angli and Normans already mentioned — the Anglicus 
numenis fitting into the divisions of the libra as made by the 
Angli, and the Norman and Danish way of counting fitting 
into the divisions of the pound into 240 pence. They seem 
in very many cases, and presumably in all, to have been 
Instructed or to have followed previous practice thus. In 
some cases they appear to have stated the number of hides, 
terrae ad car., or carucatae, or areas, at one-sixth less of the 
actual number, six hides, or car., being reckoned as five. 
This course they pursued more especially where the areas 
could be reduced without leaving fractions, or where one or 
more persons occupied substantial blocks 'extra hidam,' as 
at Chyllelesla, in Hertfordshire. In other cases they treated as 
' extra hidam ' the sixth part in each individual area in cultiva- 
tion : thus, 144 acres would be, for the purposes of taxation, 
reduced to 120, the virgate of 36 to 30, the hide of wara of 
288 to 240, and so on; the surplus acreage was actually 
placed ' extra hidam.' They thus would arrive at a uniform 
assessment. There are distinct proofs of the king's officers 
thus acting in D. Bk. itself ; but if it was possible to compare 
D. Bk. with the original returns in England, or with suc- 
ceeding manuscripts such as ' H. R.,' * L. E.,' or ' R. C.,' I have 
no fear but that many more would.be found. Of instances 
of the first method of reduction there is that of Clifton in 
Yorkshire, D. Bk. Tom. 1. fol. 3I3\ being No. 344 in the 

VOL. I. A A 



3S4 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

table ante. The exact entry is : * In Clifton supra dicto 
manerio adjacet soca horum Fuleforde una canicata et tres 
bovatae Aseri quatuor carucatae Chetelsthorp quatuor carucatse 
Languelt una carucata et dimidium Chelchefeld duo canicatx 
et duo bovatae Morebi una carucata. Distone quatuor 
carucatae. 'Hi tria fuerunt maneria tamen sunt in soca de 
Cliftun simul ad geldum quindecim carucatae una bovata 
minus et — octo carucatae possunt ere.' If, for the purposes of 
simplicity, we add a bovate to each side of the equation, we 
shall then have i8 carucatae in area reduced by the king's 
officers to 1 5 carucatae ad geldum. The details of this manor, 
which was in a three-course, are these : — 

Actual Area 
viii car. 'Anglico numero ' . 1,152 8x144 

Idle shift 576 

1T728 
1,728 acres are 18 carucates of 96 (12 bovates of 8*). 

Explanation of Taxation, 
viii car. ad geldum . 960 8 x 120 

Idle shift 'extra hidam' ... 480 

1,440 acres 
1,440 acres are 18 carucates of 80 (12 bovates of 6f ). 

A bovate of 6f ' Anglico numero ' equals 8*, and 80 ' Anglico 
numero ' is 96, and 18 of 80 equals i S of 96. In most counties 
(except Dorset, Middlesex, Sussex, Surrey, York, and Wilt- 
shire) the entry would have run — viii. 'hid,' or *car.,' ad 
geldum terra est ad xviii. car. 

So, too, at Chillelesla, in Hertfordshire, the actual total 
area was 6 areas of 120 acres of wara, and so amounting 
altogether to 1440. The king's officers have reduced this in 
D. Bk. to 5 hides of geldable land, i.e. 600 acres ; the process 
being as follows : — Half goes off as untaxed fallow in a two- 
course manor, the areas being areas of wara, and the fallow 
* jacens in communi,' then the remaining 720 is reduced one- 
sixth by reducing the number of geldable hides from six to 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 355 

five ; this sixth remained in the lord's demesne entirely 
untaxed. 

The following are of the other method. Wilburton D. Bk. 
192^ is a case of this description. The actual area all told 
was 864 acres, as appears from the details of it contained in 
the MS. L.E., made up thus : — 

Lord's arable (including lord's pratum of 39*) 423 

Cottagers, i* each ....... 9 

Libere tenentes 108 

4 Sochmanni 24 

Operarii 300 

864 

and the entry in D. Bk. is this : ' Ibi v hidae. Terra est vii 
car. In dominio iii hid. et i virg. et ibi iii car. Ibi iiii 
sochi et ix vilL cum iiii car. Ibi viiii cotarii et vii servi.' 
The entry in * Inquisitio Eliensis/ p. 506, is as follows : — 
Wilbertona pro v hid. se defendit vi car. ibi est terra iiii car. 
et iii hid. et una virga in dominio iiii car. hominum ix villani 
quisque x acr. et iiii alii viU. de una virgata.' 

On reference to the primary return, contained in the ' In- 
quisitio Eliensis ' (Ellis D. Bk. tom. iv., page 506), it appears 
that 'vi car. ibi est terra' divided into 'quatuor car. in 
dominio' and 'quatuor car. hominum.' These six car. of the 
•Inquisitio Eliensis' of 120, 'juxta estimationem Anglorum' 
6 (144), exactly equal 864 acres ; or, as D. Bk. put it, 3 lord's 
car. of 144 (120, 'Anglico numero') plus 4 average car. of 
108 acres to tenants exactly make the 864*. The eight 
ploughs of the lord and men of the * Inquisitio Eliensis ' have 
an average terra of 108 acres each over the manor. If a sixth 
part is taken off a terra of 108, it becomes 90, and that is just 
to what the king's officers have in D. Bk. reduced the terra 
of the car. of 108 belonging to the libere tenentes (the ix vill. 
quisque de x acris). But the case does not end there ; the 
holdings of the homines were holdings of 'wara,' i.e. the 
fallow was not taxed ; the manor was in a three-course shift, 

A A 2 



356 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

and the actual acreage of the tenants' car. (4 car. of 108) was 
432 ; so the king's officers take off a third for fallow, which 
they make 'extra hidam ; ' deducting this 144 from 864 there 
remains 720 acres, off which they take a sixth, as at Cliftun 
and elsewhere, and the total is reduced to 600, or $ hides of 
120, at which it stands ad geldum. The lord's iii hidae et i 
virg. is really 3(120 + 24) not 360 + 24. There are other 
cases like this in D. Bk. 

In the case of Broctune in Hunts D. Bk., tom. i. foL 204*, 
there are 9 hides ad geldum. The lord pays on the lord's 
land (4 hides), as we learn from D. Bk. that he had 4 car. 
This leaves tenants' land on which the geld of five more 
hides was to be paid. The H. R. (taking the geldable virgate 
of D. Bk.) says it is thirty acres, which, of course, it must be if 
we accept the theory that the Domesday geldable hide, or 
carucate, is 120 acres and six would go to an areal carucate 
of 180 in a three-course shift. But as regards the actual 
areas, the R. C. (Rolls Series, p. 333), says this : * Sex autem 
virgatae et dimidia terrae faciunt hydam ; et triginta et du£ 
acrae faciunt virgatam.' The two statements are both right, 
if the geldable Domesday hide was 120 acres; and it is 
explained thus: Six areal virgates of 48 give 288 — i.e. a 
hide of wara ' juxta estimationem Anglorum.' The sum 
total of 5 hides of ' wara,' i.e. fallow not taxed, * Anglico 
numero ' would be 1440. The kingf's officers take off one 
half for fallow, which reduces it to 720 ; they then take off 
the sixth, which reduces it further to 600, which are $ hides 
of 120 ad geldum. The singular way in which ' quadraginta 
et octo ' is turned in R. C. into ' triginta et duae et dimidium ' 
shows that the manor had gone into a three-course between 
the time of D. Bk. and the R. C. Before leaving this case, I 
may say that I have a suspicion that H. R. and D. Bk. also, 
sometimes for convenience sake, transposed numbers. Thus : 
30 of 32 = 32 of 30. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 357 

The next case that I will allude to is that of Ellingtune 
in Huntingdonshire, torn. i. fol. 204^ Leaving out one hide 
which the King had taken for forest and another that the 
milites had, there were eight hides * ad geldum ' ; of these the 
lord had two, leaving six to the men : the actual area of the 
homines was 864. The R. C. says that 6 areal vii^ates of 24 
went to a hide ; the H. R. (not following D. Bk., but being 
equally right) says 5, reducing 6 to S, instead of reducing 24 
to 20. The facts were that off every virgate the king's 
officers take and place * extra hidam ' a sixth, i.e. 4 ac, 
making the virgate 20 acres, of which there would be of 
course six in the geldable hide of 120. It will be noticed in 
this case, and at Qroctune, that the number of hides is not 
reduced, but the amount of acreage put * extra hidam ' re- 
duces the whole to the same extent. Moreover, the 5 of 24 
of the H. R. = the 6 of 20 of D. Bk. 

The last case that I shall take is one from vol. ii. of H. R. 
545, being that of Schelford Magna, where twenty-five men 
by name are each said to hold 15 or 7^ acres, but when the 
holdings of these same men are compared with their holdings 
as stated in a contemporaneous MS. (L. E.), they are found 
to be in number |th larger, viz. 18 and 9 acres or Anglo- 
Saxon areas. 

(Hundred Rolls, a.d. 1279.) (MS. L.E. a.d. 1277.) 

Magna Shelford. Magna Shelford. 

De Servis. De dimidiis virgatis. 

Nicholas Dilkes . . .15 18 

William Aimer . -15 • • • . . 18 

Robert King . 15 • • • . . 18 

Richard Bode . .15 18 

JohnWray . . .15 18 

Hereward Samar • ^5 18 

SunemanadPot • ^5 iS 

William Blize .... 15 18 

Henry Godfrey. . .15 18 

Richard Hochelle . .15 18 

WmiamKing . .15 18 

William Samar . . . • *5 '8 

Thorn, fil. Walt. . .15 18 

John Samar . . . • '5 18 



358 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 



Aliis Senris. 
Albertus Molendinus. 
Abel Faukes 
John Lessy 
William Lessy 
Adam Rolf 
Richard Hug 
John Tarburn 
Folkes . 
Richard de Bery 
John Chanter 
WUliam Rolf 



De teoentihut Novem 



7* 
7i 
7* 
7* 
7h 
7i 
7i 
7* 
7* 
7i 
7i 



9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 



The MS. L. E. states the measuring pole to be 1 6^ feet, 
i.e. statutory foot of 304 mm. ; this equals, as we have seen, 
ante, 15 feet of 335, and 18 feet of 279, therefore the acres^ 
would be equal by whichever rod they were measured, but 
the number of acres correspond with the number of feet in 
pole that was used centuries before, viz. the duodecimal rod 
of 279 mm., 6 falls going to the acre (see ante). 

The explanation is simple enough — both statements are 
true — because the H. R. statement is only that of the Domes- 
day geldable land, and so 15 acres answers thus to the 18 of 
the MS., which contain 1 5* c^ taxed land plus 3* extra hidofm 
being the surplus acres caused by the Anglicus numerus, or 
division of their pound-paying unit and duodecimal division of 
their rod, the number of acres grouped in the pole land or vir- 
gate following the number of feet in the virga. But nevertheless 
one of two antiquaries (calculating from the size of the virgate 
of the manor) would make the Domesday geldable hide to be 
120*, and the other would make it 144. Each would calculate 
according to which of the two MSS. they respectively got 
hold of. This shows the danger of error that may arise from 
taking the area of a virgate of the tax-paying part of the 
D.Bk. hide to be the actual area in acres or vice versd, and 
may also explain, perhaps, the use of the term plena terra, as 
meaning a terra containing not only the geldable land, but 
the land extra hidam. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 359 

I cannot refrain from inserting here a passage which 
alludes to the method of counting to be found in East Anglia 
even at the present day. It is to be found in the 3rd edition 
of the Life of Frank Buckland, at p. 309, and is as follows : 
' The crab fishers of Cromer have a peculiar arithmetic. Thus, 
two crabs are counted as one : the two crabs being called a 
cast, six score crabs are called a hundred. At Cromer, there- 
fore, a hundred crabs means 240.' But our forefathers were 
more advanced than that when they grouped into one pound- 
paying unit or hide of wara, ' Anglico numero/ 288 acres. 

But it must be clearly understood that this reduction of 
the sixth part is not in the nature of an assessment, but that a 
sixth part in actual acres was put ' extra hidam,' and that the 
Mercian sixteenth part or the Anglo-Saxon sixth part might, 
as at Chyllelesla, be held independently by a third person. 
Moreover, in some cases in MSS., the definite names of 
' sexacra ' and * sexlond ' was given to this sixth part ; thus 
in the Domesday of St. Paul (Hale, p. 46) there will be found 
an entry shewing that ' Ralf fil leflede ' held ' I acram sexacram 
extra hidam,' and in the same page * 11 sexacras extra hidam.' 
So, too, at page 49, there is a list of persons who hold eight 
acres of * sexacras,' and another in regard to * sexlond.* It 
is worthy of remark, however, that at page Ixvii. of the same 
book Archdeacon Hale has yielded to the mistaken sugges- 
tion of a friend, and has confessed to an error of transcription 
where there has been no error at all. 

The following table shews the practical working of the 
Anglicus numerus and the change from a two to a three-course 
shift. 



36o A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 













oNun 


/^»J 


^ansfaUow; 


5 means surplusage 












Anglic 


&ero 








Wara, 3 coarse 


Infr. 


Warn, acoone 


Simple 






Extra hidam 




Extra 
hidam 


Infr. 




Extr. 
hid. 


Infr. 




Total 


F 


S 


hid. 
D. Bk. 


Toul 




hid. 
D. Bk. 


Total 


hid. 
D. Bk. 




F 


S 






24 


8 


2« 


I3i 


24 


12 2 


10 


12 


2 


10 


Bovato 




24 


♦8 





♦16 




















3S 


12 


4 


20 


36 


18 


3 


15 


18 


3 


IS 


>> 




^ 


16 


5i 


26il 


48 


24 


4 


20 


24 


4 


20 


Virgatc 




48 


♦16 





♦32 




















72 


M 


8 


40 


72 


^t 


6 


30 


36 


6 


30 


»j 




96 


32 


loj 


53i 


96 


48 


8 


40 


48 


8 


40 


> 




96 


♦32 





♦64 




















144 


48 


16 


80 


144 


72 


12 


60 


72 


12 


60 


Terra 




192 


64 


21* 


loej 


192 


96 


16 


80 


96 


16 


80 


» 




192 


♦64 





♦128 




















216 


72 


24 


120 


216 


108 


18 


90 


108 


18 


90 


<t 




288 


96 


32 


160 


288 


,44 


24 


120 


144 


24 


120 


:i 





VII. *VILLANUS/ 'SERVUS.' 

The words 'villanus' and 'servus' in D. Bk. do not 
necessarily imply a reference to one person only. They very 
often mean an estate of one or more villani, or servi, worked 
by one plough, such villani and servi being in the MSS. 
called 'socii' and * participes.' There are to be found in 
D. Bk. repeated instances of halves of villani (Burewelle, 
D. Bk. I92^ and Grantesete, D. Bk. 196* for instance) where 
the words must have meant estates, and not persons (as these 
are not cases of half commendation, but are distinct halves of 
villani; thus at Burwell the entry is 'ibi XLII vill. et dim.'); 
and this fact is made clear by cases where the statement of the 
number of hides is exactly the same in Domesday and in the 
Hundred Rolls, and we are thus enabled to make a comparison 
between the details of such manors (being manors in Cambs, 
Hunts, and Bucks) as contained in the Hundred Rolls and 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 



361 



Uara means fallow untaxed. 













Normaui > 
Waia, 3COU 


Fumbcrs 
rse 






Simple 


Waia, acoixne 






Infr. 


Infr. 


Extr. 




Infr. 


Extr. 






hid. 


hid. 


hid. 


Total 


hid. 


hid. 


Total 






D.Bk, 
10 


D.Bk. 


F. 




DBk. 
I3i 


F. 








10 


10 


20 


6§ 


20 


Nott.~\i the surplusage arising from 














the Anglicus numerus is taken off by 


















reducing the number of areal hides or 




15 


15 


15 


30 


20 


10 


30 


car. (for instance, where 6 hides or car. 




20 


20 


20 


40 


26| 


I3i 


40 


are reduced to 5) there would of course 














be no further reduction in the indi- 










60 






60 


vidual areas: consequently there 




30 


30 


30 


40 


20 


would be five virgates of 24 in every 
lao instead of 6 of 20 +4* ex. hi. : so, 




40 


40 


40 


80 


534 


2^ 


80 


















too, in the same event the numbers 












80 






marked • would be developed : see 




60 


60 


60 


120 


40 


120 


remarks, ante, pp. 84, 85, on virgate 




80 


80 


80 


160 
180 


io6| 


534 
60 


160 


of yi : and so on in regard to all the 
virgates and areas expressed in 
tufives, or fractions of twelves. In 




90 


90 


90 


120 


180 


the case of the oound-paying unit of 
256 instead of ii beins taken off there 
would be ^ taken off, i.e. 8 acres off 




120 


120 


120 


240 


160 


80 


240 


















1 














every laS and 2 off 33. 



in D. Bk. respectively: for instance, Lechamstead, i8 hides, 
D. Bk. I44^ and 2 H. R. p. 338 ; Acle, 3 hides, D. Bk. I47^ 
and 2 H. R. p. 339; Mortune, 5 hides, D. Bk. 153*, H. R. 
p. 341 ; Stratford, 8 hides, D. Bk. I49^ 2 H. R. 342, &c. 
See a very curious case, Saltreyea, or Saltrede, 7^ hides + i v., 
D. Bk. 204^ and 2 H. R. p. 659. The population of the 
country at the time of D. Bk. has, in consequence, been 
greatly under-estimated, to the extent, I should say, of at 
least one-third ; and anything put forward as historical fact 
in regard to population, founded only on the number of 
' villani ' stated in D. Bk., is, I am perfectly sure, of very little 
value, however distinguished the historian may be who uses 
Domesday Book for the purpose of ascertaining the number 
of the population at that time. 

It has been assumed — rightly or wrongly I cannot say — 
that the form of inquiry sent to the Commissioners who 
made inquest of the manors of the Abbey of Ely was the 



362 A NEW VIEW OF THE GELDABLE UNIT OF 

same that was sent into other counties. The inquiry which 
called forth the ' Inquisitio Eliensis ' was to include a return 
of 'quot hidae quot carucae in dominio quot hominum quot 
villani quot cotarii quot servi quot liberi homines quot 
sochmannL' From the fact of halves of 'villani' having 
been mentioned in Domesday we are driven to the con- 
clusion that the inquiry was directed to their estates and 
not to the number of such persons, and I am inclined to 
think that the return really asked for was, how many 
ploughs of the men ? and of these, how many have the villani ? 
how many the servi ? how many the cottagers ? how many the 
freemen ? and how many the sochmanni ? because I have found 
so many cases in the Hundred Rolls and other old MSS. where 
the number of viigates exactly tallies with the number of 
villani, servi, bordarii, sochmanni and libere tenentes stated in 
Domesday. Of course I shall be met with the objection, How 
could ' servi ' have ploughs or hold land ? The Domesday 
'servus,* however, was not a slave as we understand the 
word, and he did have ploughs and he did have land, with 
this proviso, that he held them at the will of his lord. 

The homines of the lords were divided in the laws of Ina 
into 'geneats' and 'geburs,' and the difference between the 
two and their respective obligations to their lord can be 
found in Thorpe, ' Ancient Laws, &c., of England,' first edi- 
tion, page 185 ; it is sufficient to say that the ' villanus' of 
Domesday was the ' geneat,' and the ' servus ' of Domesday 
the ' gebur,' and that in the Latin translation of these laws of 
Ina, made in the 12th century, the word 'geneat ' is construed 
' villanus,' and the word ' gebur * is construed ' servus.' 

Moreover, in Oxfordshire, 698, Hundred Rolls, vol. ii., at 
the end of each class of tenant, ue. of ' servi,' ' libere tenentes ' 
and ' cotarii,' it is stated thus, * Et tenent ut servi,' * et tenent 
ut libere tenentes,' ' Et tenent ut cotarii,' and so too in other 
manors, clearly showing that they held estates. 



ASSESSMENT OF DOMESDAY 363 

Generally it may be said that Domesday and the Hundred 
Rolls are returns exactly similar, with this exception, that 
Domesday merely gives the number of virgates and groups 
them under the names 'villanus/ 'servus,* 'cotarius,' *bor- 
darius,' while the H. R. also gives the number of virgates 
(often just the same in number as in Domesday), but goes on 
to disclose what has escaped our historians, viz. that in each 
virgate there often were crowded many * socii * or * participes,' 
holding portions of such virgates. For this reason it is 
expressly enacted in the * Brehon Laws,' vol. iii. p. 142, that 
* two persons possessing one holding upon the land of one 
man are regarded as one man,' and in the ' Leges Walliae,' 
p. 790, 'Census terrae que dicitur rant)a* (particula) est a 
villano sive unus sit sive multi sint in ea,' and there is ground, 
therefore, to suppose that the recording of the number of 
estates was aimed at in Domesday rather than the actual 
number of men and women on such estates, and that the 
number of * villani ' as recorded in Domesday falls very far 
short of the actual number occupying the land. 



APPENDIX. 



I HAVE added this Appendix, containing certain variations in the 
several feet set down in Column B. The figures in the several 
columns are amounts expressed in millimetres; but I have dis- 
regarded fractions of millimetres, adding one, however, where the 
fraction exceeds half a millimetre. Column A contains the names 
of the several places given in Kelly's ' Cambist/ Column B contains 
the length of the foot at each of such places as returned by the 
British Consuls abroad in answer to Ix>rd Castlereagh's circular of 
March lo, 1818. Column C contains the length of a foot the size 
of which is twelve-tenths of the foot named in Column B. Column 
D contains the amount of a sesquipedalis cubit of foot C. Column E 
contains the length of a foot of the size of three-fifths of such cubit. 
It follows therefore that a rod of 1 2 of the feet in Column B equals 
a rod of 10 of the feet in Column C, and a rod of 13 of the feet in 
Column B practically equals 12 of the feet in Column E, and a rod 
of 9 of the feet in Column C equals a rod of 10 of the feet E or 6 of 
the cubits in Column D. Take Groningen for an example, with the 
foot of •291-2 m. ; 650 (50 X 13 of Column B=5o x 12 of Column E) 
of these feet equal 189 metres, which make the exact length of the 
Babylonian stadion : but 600 of '315 m. of E, or 540 of C, or 360 of 
the cubits of D also make that stadion. See anU^ p. 259. 

By the addition of a fifth to the cubit of D it becomes a bipedalis 
cubit of foot E, and the stadion becomes 226*8 m., which squared 
becomes 10 Scotch acres of 72 x 720 of -3148 m. 

It will also thus appear how the foot of 330 of E (England) is the 
foundation of the Westmoreland acre {antey p. 270). It is not 
necessary to multiply further examples. 



APPENDIX 



365 



U sixfeen-ienihs (instead of fwelve-tenths) of the foot of Column 
B is taken to form a foot, it will, in some cases, make another known 
foot : for instance, six/een-tenths of the common foot of -289-90 m. 
gives the 464 foot of Pavia, and sixfe^n-tenths of the Statute foot of 
England ('3048 m.) gives '4876 m. of Geneva, and 60 x 600 of these 
give the Cheshire acre of 96x960 (ante, p. 274). The feet in 
Column B up to a certain size are evidently common feet with or 
without a sole or shoe, and then become mathematical feet of a larger 
size. {JVbfe, — The Geneva *aune,* 1-1429 m., is the English ell of 5 
Welsh feet of nine inches.) 



I 



Welsh (Govt. Report) 

England, 10 inches 

Valencia . 

Sicily 

Carrara . 

Genoa, 3 B. Roman ' Gradus ' 

Sardinia . 

Greek, 36.= bema 

Nice, 3 B. Babylon step 

Naples . 

Revel, 3 B. Bagdad yard 

Riga . 
I Cologne . 
I Heidelberg 

I Osnaburg 

I Hildersheim 
' Maestricht 
' Erfurt . 
I Leipsic . 
I Stettin . 
I Spain 
j Magdeburg 

Dresden . 

Amsterdam 
' Breslau . 

Antwerp . 

Brunswick 

Haarlem . 

Dantzic . 

Hamburg 

Frankfort 

Lorraine. 

Wiirtemberg 

Gotha . 

Liige . 

Liibeck . 

Ulm 



228 

254 
232 
242 
244 

247 
248 

257 
261 
264 
268 
274 

275 
278 

279 

281 
281 

282 
282 

283 
283 
284 
283 
283 
284 

^5 
285 

286 

287 

286 

286 

287 

286 

287 

287 

288 

289 



D 



274 


4" 


247 


C, Riga 


305 456 


274 


4 B - Calpee * Guz ' 


278 418 


251 


Palmo, C, Heidelberg 


290 435 


261 


Do. C, Gottingen 


292 1 439 


263 


Do. C, Groningen 


296 1 445 


267 


Do. C, Old Roman 


298 1 447 


268 


Do. C, Anspach 


308 462 


271 


C, Attic foot 


314 470 


282 


Pan, C, Scotch 


316 1 475 


285 


Palmo, C, Vienna 


321 482 


289 


C, Olympic nearly 


328 


493 


296 


E, old Roman ; C, Lisbon 


330 


495 


297 


C, Westmoreland 


334 


501 


301 


C, Moscow-China 
rC, Drusian foot. B, 
I Anglo-Saxon ? 


335 


502 


301 


337 


505 


303 


C, Chinese Tradesmen 


337 


505 


303 




339 


5°! 


305 


E, Statute foot of •3048 m. 


339 


508 


305 




339 


509 


305 




339 


509 


305 




340 


510 


306 


C, Verona 


340 


510 


306 




340 


510 


306 




341 


512 


307 




343 


516 


308 


E, Attic foot 


342 


513 


308 


C, Lyons 


343 


5M 


309 




344 


516 


310 


E, Berlin 


344 


516 


309 




344 


516 


309 




344 


516 


310 




343 


515 


309 




345 


517 


310 




345 


517 


310 




346 


518 


3" 


C, Vicenza 


347 


I 521 


312 


C, Venice 



366 



APPENDIX 



A 


B 


C 


D 


E 




Bremen .... 


289 


347 


520 


312 




Mannheim 




289 


347 


521 


313 




Munich . 




289 


347 


520 


312 




Strasbui^ 




289 


347 


521 


312 




Ratisbon 




289 


348 


522 


313 




Rostock . 




289 


347 


520 


3«2 




Lindau . 




289 


347 


521 


312 




Gottingen 




291 


349 


523 


314 


C, Russia 


Hanover . 




291 


349 


523 


314 




Luneberg 
Stralsund 




291 


349 


523 


3H 






291 


349 


523 


3M 




WHmar . 




291 


349 


523 


314 




ZeU 




291 


349 


523 


314 




Mecklenberg . 


291 


349 


523 


3M 


E, Scotch foot of -3148 


Groningen, 3 B. Egyptian 1 
step ... J 


292 


350 


525 


315 


m. C, Egyptian, 
Russian, and Welsh. 










D, Babylonian ell. 


Irish measure, < Big acre * 


•a94ain. 


353 


529 


••3177111. 


V E, Babylonian foot 


Calemburg 


293 


351 


527 


316 




Berne 






352 


528 


317 


*E, Cunningham acre foot 


Augsburg 




296 


355 


533 


319 




Cleves . 




295 


355 


532 


319 




Oldenburg 




296 


355 


533 


319 




Strasburg 




29s 


354 


531 


319 


C. Padua 


Sweden . 




297 


356 


534 


320 


/B, old Roman; C, 


Embden . 




296 


355 


533 


320 


Royal, Welsh, Irish; 
] E, Olympic feet. D, 
i Royal cubit 


Milan . 




296 


355 


533 


320 


Anspach. 




298 


357 


536 


322 


C, Bordeaux 


Rome 




298 


357 


536 


322 




Pisa 




298 


358 


537 


322 




Basle 




298 




537 


322 




Middelbui^ . 




300 


360 


540 


324 


C, Dordrecht 


Neuchitel 




300 


360 


540 


324 




Zurich . 




300 


360 


540 


324 




Prague . 




300 


360 


540 


324 




Nurembci^ 




304 


364 


546 


328 


E, Lisbon 


England . 




^ 


366 


549 


329 


E, foot of Westmoreland 


Konigsberg . 




369 


554 


332 


B, the Attic | 


Berlin 




309 


371 


557 


334 


r E, Chinese and Drusian ; 
1 C, Chinese * Covid * 


Lindau . 




315 


378 


567 


340 


C, Sienna 


Scotch, Babylonian 




315 


378 


567 


340 




Rhine 




314 


376 


564 


339 




Innspruck 




318 


381 


571 


343 


C, Bologna 


Vienna . 




316 


379 


569 


341 




Turin . 




323 


388 


581 


349 




France . 




325 


390 


585 


351 


E, Babylonian foot 


Lisbon . 




328 


394 


'^ 


355 


E, Royal foot 


Moscow . 




334 


401 


361 


B, Drusian, Chinese 


Verona . 




340 


408 


612 


367 




Lyons 




342 


411 


616 


370 











APPENDIX 




367 


A B 

1 


C 


D 


£ 




Vicenza . • 1 34^ 


415 


623 


374 




Venice . 






347 


417 


625 


375 


2B, Hamburg ell 


Russia . 






349 


419 


628 


377 


<B, Babylonian, Wrhh 
t foot of -350 m. 


Padua . 






354 


424 


636 


382 


B, Royal 


Bordeaux 






357 


428 


642 


385 


1 Do. 80 X 800 Normandy 
t acre 


Dordrecht 






■ 360 


432 


648 


389 










. 377 


453 


679 


407 


B, i2-tenths of '3148 m. 


Bologna. 






. 380 


457 


685 


411 


B, i2-tenths of -317 


Milan . 






396 


476 


714 


429 




Ferrara . 






401 


481 


722 


433 


(B, i2-tenths of 334 
1 Drusian 


Bergamo 






. '436 


523 


785 


471 




Pavia . 






464 


585 


836 


502 


B, i6-tenths of 290 


Geneva . . , 4^ 

1 


878 


527 


B, i6-tenths of 304 



From the above it will be seen how before the common feet 
begin and after they end the ' mathematical * measures take their 
place. Some of the mathematical feet are the old so-called Roman, the 
Royal, the Olympic, the Drusian, the Statute, the Attic, the Baby- 
lonish, or some variation of them. This more fully comes out in the 
cloth ells : very often these consist of two of some common local 
foot, but (as will appear in the following list) when this is not so they 
are generally built up out of one of the above-named feet, which 
coincide with the local measures. It is curious that the Japan Inc 
is 6 of the feet of '317 m., which is the foot of the Cunningham acre 
in Ireland (72 x 720) and is in use in Arabia, Bologna, Innspruck, 
and North of Italy, being, I should imagine, a slight variation of 
the Babylonish foot of -315 m. 

Sometimes the same place has two different ells, each built up of 
different feet. 

The following measures and cloth ells may (not without doubt, 
however) in some cases have been transmitted by merchants, but 
more often, I believe, by conquest or colonisation. 



Column A gives the names of the places in Kelly's * Cambist ; ' 
B is the amount of the ell, or what answers to the ell ; C, the 
number of feet in the ell ; and D, the amount of the foot or palm in 
millimetres. 



368 



APPENDIX 



* Royal Foot * of -355 m. ; seiqui- 
pedalis cubit of -533 m, (7 
palms of 'orid m.) ; bipedalis 
cubit y 710 i». 

Barcelona 

Saltzburg . 

Constantinople 

Surat 

Morocco 

Nantes 

Revel 

Russia 

Calpee 

Ahmednuggar ' Hath ' 



Olympic Foot, -320 m. ; cubits : 
bipedalis, -640 m, ; sesqui- 
pedcUis, '480 m. 

Bagdad * yard * . 

Mocha 

Nancy 

Padua 

Siam 

Sicily 

Verona 

Trieste 

Zante 

Candia 

Calpee 

Doab 

Chinese Engineers 



^Old Roman* Foot, -296 m, ; 
bipedalis cubit, -592 m.; sesqui- 
pedalis, '444 m, 

Augsburg 

Bologna 

Bordeaux 

Erfurt 

France 

Marseilles 

Milan 

Nice 

Prague 

Rochelle 

Sweden 

Turin 



B 


C 


D 


I 


i{ 


357 
534 


708 


2 


354 


716 


2 


358 


533 
1*4 1 6m. 


li 


355 


4, 


354 


535 


'i 


357 


711 


2 


,^55 


7" 


2 


355 


355 


I 


355 


804 


;i 


321 


482 


320 


639 


2 


320 


642 


2 


321 


I -92 m. 


6 


320 


i-93m. 


6 


320 


640 


2 


320 


640 


2 


320 


644 


2 


322 


638 


2 


319 


I •6 m. 


5, 


320 


479 


li 


320 


321 


1 


321 


592 


2 


296 


595 


2 


297 


I •19 m. 




297 


594 




297 


I'i8m. 




297 


do. 


do. 


do. 


594 




297 


i-i8m. 




296 


592 




296 


I'i8m. 




296 


593 




296 


591 


2 


295 



* Arsheen* 

*GU2' 

• Hath ' 



3 Revel feet 
• Covit * 

Voua 
Voua 

10 B, Irish perch 



'Gui' 
»Hath» 



APPENDIX 



369 



Babylonish Egyptian Foot ^ '350 m,; 
EU, 525 m. 

Irish ' big acre ' rod . 

Brabant 

Hague 

Lille 

Ostend 

Naples, old Egyptian Orguia 



Bahylonish Foot^ '315 «., \ihs of 
Eli of '$2$ m, 

Cunningham acre 

Scotland . 

Surat 

Bassora . 

Arabia, old ell . 

Bergen 

Tunis 

Bologna . 

Japan Inc 

Bolsano, 3 x '264 m. 

Venice 

Copenhagen 

Innspruck 

Mantua 

Calpee'Guz' . 

Mocha 

Parma 

Patros 

Persia 



«>step 



Druiian Footy Chinese^ '334 »». 

Calpee 

Saltzburg 

AU . 

Berlin 

Cyprus 

Embden 

Ferrara 

Namur 

Oudenarde 

Ravenna 

Trent 

Trieste 

Tunis 

Bengal 

Montpelier 

VOL. 1. 



B 


C 


D 


3-53 m. 


10 


353 


700 


2 


350 


694 


2 


347 


703 


2 


351 


609 


2 


350 


2'iom. 


6 


350 


572 m. 


18 


•3177m. 


944 


3. 


•3148 m. 


470 


It 


3M 


941 


3 


314 


635 


2 


317 


627 


2 


•3138m. 


629 


2 


314 


634 


2 


317 


I •90 m. 


6 


317 


790 


2i 


315 


630 


2 


315 


627 


2 


314 


7«7 


A 


3H 


635 


2 


317 


940 


3 


313 


634 


2 


317 


637 


2 


3i« 


634 


2 


317 


945 


3 


315 


997 


3 


332 


I -005 m. 


3 


335 


668 


2 


334 


666 


2 


IZZ 


671 


2 


335 


670 


2 


335 


669 


2 


335 


663 


2 


331 


667 


2 


334 


672 


2 


336 


676 


2 


338 


675 


2 


337 


673 


2 


336 


i-332m. 
I •987m. 


4 


333 


6 


331 



Decempedal rod 



Modem ell 



D, Cunningham acre 
D, Rhine foot 

Benares yard 
3 B, Cunningham rod 
B, Step 
Old Scotch ell 



'Guz' 



•Guz* 
Anjar * Gur ' 

Ahmedabod < Guz ' 



*Covah* 
'Cannc' 



B B 



yjo 



APPENDIX 



A 


B 


C 


D 




English Footy -3048 m. {^ palms 










palms, -2286 m. ; cubil, t palms. 


















•456 «. 








[Government Re- 


Welsh foot 9 inches . 


•2286 m. 


9 


•0254 m. 


port, 1820, p. 17, 


Turki.sh pic 






684 


3 


228 


I iw*' Wales* 


Trent 








611 


2 


fA 




Syria 








685 


3 




Abyssinia . 








685 


3 


228 




Amsterdam 








687 


Ik 


456 


Bombay 


Antwerp . 








684 


3 


228 




Augsbu^ . 








609 


2 


304 


Bengal 


Batavia . 








685 


3 


228 


Bombay 


England . 








I '14 m. 


5 


228 




Geneva . 








I 'Mm. 


5 


228 




Bombay . 
Cairo 








^ 


6 
3 


076 
227 




Lucca 








604 


2 


302 




Madras . 








457 


6 


076 




Maestricht 








684 


9 


076 




Oran 








68s 


3 


228 




Padua 








681 


3 


227 




Patras 








68s 


3 


228 




Scios 








68s 


3 


228 




G)nstantinople 








f!' 


3 


229 




Smyrna . 








685 


3 


228 




Stuttgart . 








611 


2 


305 




Toulouse . 








i'82m. 


6 


303 




Guinea . 








'-Ut 


12 


305 




Leyden . 








3 


228 




Libau 








610 


2 


305 




Lisbon . 








678 


3 


226 


Covado 










Government Re- 


Old Welsh . . . . 


274 m. 


12 


228 


port, p. 22, voce 
I 'LlathenGyvelin* 




i.e. 


6 


456 


Rod of Cubits 


Baroda 


684 


3 


228 


«Guz» 


Malwa 


2*28 m. 


10 


228 


•Wussa' 


Attic Foot, 308 m. 










Poland 


617 


2 


308 




Toumay 


619 


2 


309 




Modena 


617 


2 


308 




Malacca 


460 




307 




Nowlgoond .... 


462 


308 





The acre abroad is sometimes called a * Morgen ' or ' joumalis ; ' 
it probably meant the quantity that must be ploughed in order to be 
quit of one day's work, not what the team was able to plough : the 
size of the acre seems to have nothing to do with the capacity of the 



APPENDIX 371 

ox or the length of the furrow either. If the Roman jugerum 
measured the capacity of two oxen turning in every 120 feet, eight oxen 
turning only once in 660 statute feet would take a much larger area 
than the statute acre. The acre is evidently the result of an imaginary 
and mathematical division of some bigger unit, probably a quarantene 
or stadion, just as the Babylonish stadion was divided. 

It is hardly necessary to remark that the word ' furlong ' means, 
not a furrow long^ but rather a line of forty rods long. This line 
squared makes a ' stadialis ager * or acre : Le. a quarantene and 144 of 
these make a still larger ager, as shown ante in this paper, amounting 
to ten or twelve hides. From the use of the words acre or ager in 
these senses the names of places such as Castle Acre, West Acre 
(West field), &c., have arisen. And perhaps the word * ager ' in the 
Cornwall Domesday has this sense too. 

Moreover on the Continent as in England we sometimes find in 
the same place two * Morgens * or acres each of different sizes represent- 
ing two separate divisions of the same ' ager ' or quarantene. Kelly's 
'Cambist ' (p. 35, Berlin), after stating that the engineer's foot is the 
Rhineland foot of '314 hl and the rutAe or rod is twelve of these feet, 
continues thus : ' A Great Hufe land measure is divided into 30 Great 
Morgens or 66f Little Morgens or Acres ; a Hacken or Small Hufe 
contains 2 Great Morgens ; a land Hufe is i Great Morgen, The Great 
Morgen is composed of 400 square Ruthes or Perches, and the Little 
Morgen ^180.' Now if an ager of 7,200 feet square of '314 m. to the 
foot is divided into ten strips and each strip into ten agri, we get an 
ager or quarantene of 720 of such feet square ; and if we divide this 
last by 10, we get ten Scotch acres of 72 x 720 of -314 m. to the foot. 

Halving this Scotch ager or acre of 72 x 720, we get the Little 
Morgen of 36 x 720 containing the 180 square ruthes of 12 x '314 m. 
If we take the same ager of 720 x 720 and divide it by 9 instead of 10, 
being the proportion that in Mecklenburg (see ante, p. 3 of this 
Appendix) foot C '349 m. bears to foot E— i.e. as 9 to 10 — we get the 
Great Morgen of 80 x 720 of the foot '314 m. E, containing 400 square 
ruthes of 12 of these feet So that in each strip there would be 3 
Great Hufes or 90 Great Morgens or 100 Scotch acres or 200 Little 
Morgens ; and 10 times these quantities would comprise the larger 
ager of 7200 feet square. A larger ager of 8640 x 8640 divided by 
12 and again by 12 would produce the same ager or quarantene with 
a total in all of 43^ Great Hufes, 1440 Scotch acres, or 2880 Little 
Morgens or 1296 Great Morgens. The connection of the foot C with 
the foot £ is shown at the beginning of this Appendix. It therefore 

B B 2 



372 APPENDIX 

follows that an ager or quarantene of 720 feet square of the foot of 
'314 m. equals an ager of 648 feet square of the foot of '349 m. and this 
divided by 9 gives the acre or ager of 72x648 (6x54 twelve-feet 
ruthes) of the foot of '349 m. : nine of such acres equalling ten Scotch or 
twenty Little Morgens as before. These are the mathematical divisions 
by which the Morgens would be arrived at Moreover, what we in Eng- 
land call the 'acre' is on the Continent sometimes divided into two or 
more 'Morgens.' See Hanover, last table, p. 385, and Berlin, p. 382. 

The actual shape of the acre would of course be adapted (as it is 
in the statute of Edward) to the configuration of the ground, that^ in 
fact, determining the length of the furrow, and not the capacity of an 
eight-ox plough. Reverting to a Scotch quarantene of 7 20 feet square 
of the Babylonish foot of '315 m. (instead of '3148 m. thus replacing ^ of 
a millimetre lost in its travels) we have a quarantene of 226*8 m. each 
side — ^that is, 108 Egyptian Orguiae of 2'io m. (6 feet of '350 m.) or 120 
Babylonish quani of 1*89 (6 x '315 m.) or 72 quani of 3*15 m. : it would 
therefore appear that the Big Morgen was on the lines of the big foot 
of '350 m. and the Scotch acre and Little Morgen on the smaller 
Babylonish foot of '315 m. 

The Cunningham acre in Ireland of 6250 square statute yards is 
75x750 Stat, feet of '305, which is the tenth part of an ager or quarantene 
of 720 of "3177 m. to the foot, instead of '3x5 m., beinga foot in use in 
Arabia, Bologna, Mantua, Patros, and Japan, as well as in Ireland, and 
being apparently the Babylonian foot of '31 5 m. with an addition of over 
2 mm. The acre, therefore, would appear to be deduced in the same 
way as the Scotch, but with a slightly larger foot. Now as 9 of C feet 
equal 10 feet of E (9 x -350 m.= 3-15 m.), so also 10 of the E feet of 
•3177 m. = 9 of the C feet of '353 m., and the actual existence of this 
foot of '353 m. in Ireland is thus well proved, and it is further proved 
thus: in the Carew MSS. (see ante^ pp. 282, 286) there is mention made 
of a big acre measured by a rope of 29 statute feet This acre, there- 
fore, is 4 X 29 or 1 16 X 1 160 statute feet of '3048. Now 1,160 statute 
feet is 353 metres, and that is seen to be 1,000 feet of '353 m. or 1 1 1^ 
of '31 77 m. or 1,200 of the foot '2942 m. (see Appendix tables, ante^ voc. 
* Irish Measures '). The acre was therefore in length 100 ten-feet poles 
or 50 twenty-feet ropes of the '353 m. foot C, or 120 ten-feet poles or 
60 twenty-feet poles or 40 thirty-feet ropes of the foot B of '2942 m., 
and 5 acres made up a stadion of 600 feet of the foot B '2942 m. 
There is also an acre in Wales, already described ante^ based on the big 
foot of -350 m., being 80 x 800 of those feet I think that there is no 
doubt that when we read of a pole or a rope expressed in any other way 



APPENDIX 372 

than in decimal, duodecimal, septdecimal or sexdecimal numbers, viz. in 
5, 6, 7, or 8, or some multiple thereof, without fractions of feet or cubits, 
we may be fairly sure that the rod is expressed in feet or cubits other 
than the original feet ; I have therefore added the following table, 
which shows each point where the multiples of certain feet coincide. 
The other feet named in the tables ante can be dealt with on the same 
principle, thus solving many difficulties often disposed of by the ready 
use of the word * about* 

The base of many of the acres in the United Kingdom (as well 
as the rods) will be found in some one of the following columns. If 
the dase is multiplied into ten times its amount, it will give the acre 
itself in metres normally, subject, however, to the following remark : if 
the number of feet supposed to form the base of an acre when divided 
by 4 will not produce a rod being a multiple either of 5, 6, 7, or 8 with- 
out fractions, then a different base (though of exactly the same actual 
length) of a different number of feet of a different size is the probable 
and more ancient base. Thus the statute acre in its base is 66 feet of 
•3048 m.=20'i 168 m. Now 66-^-4= 16 i, which does not conform to 
the above conditions : if we take, however, the Osnaburg foot of 
-2794 m. and reckon 72 to the base, this will give the 20*1168 m. and 
does conform to the conditions, as it produces the rod of 18 feet. So 
also will a base of 60 x '33528 m. For this reason I do not think 
that the Roman gradus or the Greek and Egyptian bema were 2\ of 
their respective mathematical feet, but rather three of the feet B next 
to such mathematical feet, which would then not run the measures 
into fractions of feet Thus the Roman gradus was 2^ of '2967 m. 
or 741 m. = (see Genoa in column B) 3 x "247 m. =741 m ; and if a 
quarantene or stadion of 600 feet consisted of 240 steps or bemata, 
then it would also consist of 600 of foot C, or 720 of foot B. 

This entirely coincides with Dynval's measurements in Wales 
(ante, Gwentian Code), giving as he does three of his * feet ' of '228 m. 
=•684 m. to his pace = 2^ of the Riga foot B. Following this out 
and taking 240 of his paces, we get the quarantene of 720 of his feet 
s= 540 statute feet or 10 Anglesea acres, being the quarter of 10 Irish 
acres of 144 x 1440 Dynval's feet or 108 x 1080 statute feet (see ante, 
page 285). All such measurements would be strictly in the decimal 
and duodecimal system combined ; but working in the decimal and 
sexdecimal systems combined, and so giving 320 paces (2 x 16 x 10) to 
the quarantene instead of 240, we get a stadion of 960 feet, which con* 
tains 10 Cheshire acres, if of the stat. foot, or 40 erws if of Dynval's 
foot of '228 m. = 10 Cornish and Lancashire acres of 5760 stat yards. 



374 APPENDIX 

But the bigger units were sometimes stepped out and divided on strictly 
decimal^ duodecimal znd sexdedmal lines. Thus the Devonshire quaxan- 
tene is iivo hundred {2 x 10 x 10) paces of three statute feet (instead of 
240, 2 X 12 X 10) = 600 statute feet, and giving ten Devonshire acres 
each of four thousand statute yards. The quarantene of 2^ maenob 
containing ten irevs {ante^ page 280) is two hundred and fifty-six 
(16 X 16) paces of three feet of Dynval's '228 m. = 768 feet ; and the 
quarantene or half tircumhail in Ireland (see anie^ p. 265) is two hun- 
dred and eighty-eight (2x12x12) paces of three feet of -296 m. = 864 
feet. Lastly, there is the quarantene of double steps : the only one that 
I know of is built up of Dynval's feet, and is twelve hundred of them, 
being two hundred of double steps 6(2 x 10 x 10) = 1,200 of Dynval's 
feet -228 m. This when reduced to stat. feet of "3048 m. becomes the 
Lancashire quarantene of 900 statute feet or six hundred cubits^ or 
10 acres of 9,000 stat. yards with a pole (when thus reduced to stat. 
feet) of 7^ yards, but really 30 Dynval's feet 

In regard to these pace-feet (and referring back to the first table 
in this Appendix), if the feet in Column B are treated as pace-feet 
it will be found that the sesquipedalis cubit of Column D is also the 
bipedalis cubit of the pace-foot of Column E, i.e. three of suchpace- 
feet = 2\ of E, just in the same way as 3B = 2iC. This foot of the 
bipedalis mbit is nine-tenths of B, three-quarters of C, and five-sixths 
of £. For example, take England, the second case in the tables: the 
sesquipedalis cubit '456 m. D = two of DynvaPs pace feet of '288 m. 
which in the first case in the list is found to be the pace-foot of 
England E '274 m., being the Riga foot, 2^ of which = 3 of '228 m. 
Again, Irish measures, page 3 : the sesquipedalis cubit D '5294 m. = 
the bipedalis cubit of '2647 m., which is the pace-foot of '3177 m., i.e. 
^iof '3i77ro« = 3 of -2647 ™- So, too, the pace-foot of -5«^/tf«^ is /f« 
inches, '254 m., 720 of which make'up the Devonshire quarantene, for 
3 of 254 m. = 2^ of '305 m. It follows, therefore, that in every case 
the feet in Column C bear to the feet in Column E the proportion of 
10 to 9, being the exact proportion that the Egyptian foot of '350 m. 
bears to the Babylonish foot of '315 m., the same proportion, of 
course, also existing between their respective pace-feet of '292 m. and 
'2625 m. The tables are useful for tracing connections between 
the feet and ells otherwise uususpected. Thus the Milan foot is 
•396 m.; the sesquipedalis cubit of which is '594 m.; this when treated 
as a bipedalis CMhiX, gives the foot of '297 m. (practically the 'old 
Roman foot '), which is the pace-foot of -355 m. (see Lisbon, Column 
C); and, as a matter of fact, the ell at Milan is '594 m. 



APPENDIX 



37S 



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376 



APPENDIX 



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w eo W ro fO '*'. I 






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APPENDIX 377 




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37^ APPENDIX 

It may possibly be alleged that the Welsh ' foot ' of '228 is an 
impossible foot, as being too small ; but it is only necessary to say 
that the Geneva 'foot' of '488 is also an impossible foot, for if the 
'228 is not even the foot of a small dwarf^ the Geneva foot exceeds 
that of a big giant The fact is, both are merely mathematical ex- 
pressions, the smaller really being a ' span ' and the other a ' cubit' 

It is also worth mentioning that there is another version of 
Dynval's Welsh rod in the Venedotian Code which shows that his 
16-* span ' rod is in fact the 12 -statute-foot rod by which the Cornish 
acre of 5760 yards was measured, of which anyone can satisfy him- 
self by referring to the immediately preceding table. 

The following table expressed in decimals of a mbtre, without 
calling in the table itself any of these divisions either 'spans,' 
'fingers,' 'inches,' 'feet,' 'cubits,' 'ells,' &c, treat them as what 
in fact they only are — ^that is, mathematical divisions of bigger units* 
just as the acre itself is : Column A contains the names of the 
several furlongs, quarantenes, stadia or stadiales agri ; Column B 
contains ten units of B; Column C contains iwe/ve units of B; Column 
D contains eighteen units of Column B; Column £ contains nine 
units of B, and is therefore one half of D ; and Column F contains 
twelve tenths of Column K As a general rule (extending from 
Babylon and Egypt, which I place first in the lists, to the remotest 
parts), any given furlong, quarantene, or stadion consists of six 
hundred of the units of Column D, whatever we please to call them. 
It will therefore consist of 900 of Column C, 1200 of Column E, and 
1000 of Column F. 

If the mathematical division of D is multiplied by ten we get the 
decimal rod of ten of such divisions ; divide this rod into twelve 
divisions, and we get a duodecimal rod of smaller divisions ; divide it 
by fourteen and we get a rod of fourteen divisions ; divide it by 
sixteen and we have a sexdecimal rod of still smaller divisions. All 
of these divisions people have agreed to call * feet' 

This decimal rod may thus be divided by any number we please, 
between ten and fifteen, to suit any particular 'foot* we may select 

This was done on the adoption of the statute * foot ' of '3048, 
whether adopted before or at the time of the passing of the statute. 
The decimal rod was then divided by eleven^ and it thereupon fitted in 
to the statute foot of '3048. So far all is dear ; but the base line of 
an acre is ordinarily divided xnio four rods or roods of sesquipedales 
cubits : the measuring rod must therefore be increased by half as much 



APPENDIX 379 

again, i.e. hyfiz^e of the decimal divisions, by six of the duodecimal 
divisions, by seven in the case of the septdecimal divisions and by 
eight of the sexdecimcU divisions, and the increased rod would become 
fifteen^ eighteen^ twenty-one^ and twenty-four of their respective original 
divisions. Column £ multiplied by 30 will often give it : no other 
original divisions of the original decimal rod will bear such increase 
without running into fractions; this, to my mind, is conclusive that the 
division of the original decimal tod into eleiJen divisions was made to fit 
in with another ' foot' Now if we take the Cornish acre (present also 
in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Wales, &c, all Celtic country) carved out 
of the quarantene of 219*6, and divide this quarantene by sixty^ we 
get the decimal rod of 3*66; divide this into twelve divisions, and we 
have the statute foot of '3048 ; divide it by sixteen^ and we get 
Dynval's *foot ' of '228, and the rod may be increased as above by a 
half without running into fractions. Now we are expressly told in 
the Venedotian Code, Book II. c. xiv., that Dynval did use this 
latter rod of 16 x '228 ^before the Crown of London and supremacy of 
this island was seized by the Saxon.* It was therefore in use in 
England before they came, not only in the countries above named, 
but also in Devonshire, with the furlong of 182*88, consisting of 
eighty decimal rods of '228, fifty sexdecimal rods of '228, or sixty 
decimal rods of '3048. These are the considerations which led me to 
suppose that the sexdecimal divisions were present in England before 
the advent of the Saxons — a supposition in accordance not only with 
mathematical fact but also with historical fact as recorded in the 
Venedotian Code and the Government Report of 1820. 

I have stated also in the table the Cloth Ell of the country of the 
several cases therein, whether in England or on the Continent or 
elsewhere. It will be seen how in every case they fit in with the 
measurements of some one of their respective furlongs, and I am 
driven to the conclusion that these cloth ells are not in the main 
later productions following the advent of strange merchants, but in 
their original were purposely and conveniently adapted to renders in 
cloth, &c It is a most singular fact that \ht Japan ^ Inc* is i'902, 
being practically half the duodecimal tod. of the Cunningham acre in 
Ireland, the former being 6x-3i7, and the latter 12 x '3177. This 
cannot be an accidental coincidence, or to be accounted for by the 
action of merchants, but rather by the spread of land measures from 
some centre common to both countries in remote times. If any 
person will take the trouble to work out other cases with the help of 



38o APPENDIX 

Kelly's ' Cambist,' in which are collected the amount of foot and 
cloth ells, I think he will arrive at the conclusion at which I have 
arrived — namely, the probability of a close connection between 
land and doth (not silk) ells. In some places we find more than 
one land foot in the same place, indicating, I imagine, not the pre- 
sence of merchants, but rather that of colonists or conquerors. I 
could have given many more cases than those in the tables, and I 
think that the tracing of the travels of these several feet from remote 
times would be quite as instructive as that of the beech and birch 
lately discussed by the experts. 



APPENDIX 



381 



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c c 



ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



DOMESDAY COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE 

The Lord Aberdare, G.C.B., President ItHistS., Chairman. 

The Minister of the United States. 

The Master of the Rolls. 

The Lord Justice Fry. 

The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor of London. 

Alderbian Sir John Staples, K.C.M.G., F.S.A. 

The Dean of Westminster. 

G. H. Blakesley. 

£dw. a. Bond, LL.D. Principal Librarian, British Museum. 

Rev. J. Franck Bright, D.D., F.R.Hist.S., Master of University 

College, Oxford. 
Oscar Browning, M.A., F.R.HistS. 
Robert Cab^pbell. 
Hyde Clarke, V.P.R.HistS. 

Rev. Professor Mandell Creighton, M.A., F.R.Hist.S. 
Rev. W. Cunningham, B.D., F.R.HistS. 
Charles I. Elton, Q.C, M.P., F.S.A. 
C. A. Fyffe, M.A., V.P.R.Hist.S. 
Hubert Hall, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S. 

Richard R. Holmes, F.S.A., Royal Library, Windsor Castle. 
W. A. Lindsay, M.A., Portcullis Pursuivant of Arms. 
H. G. Maxwell Lyte, M.A., F.S.A., Deputy-Keeper of the Public 

Records. 
F. W. Maitland, M.A., F.R.HistS. 
F. Madan, M. a., Sub-Librarian of the Bodleian Library. 
H. S. Milman, Director of the Society of Antiquaries. 
Professor F. Pollock, M.A., LL.D. 
Herbert J. Reid, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S. 
Frederick E. Sawyer, F.S.A. 
Walford D. Selby. 

Canon Isaac Taylor, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D. 
E. Walford, M.A., F.R.Hist.S. 
H. B. Wheatley, F.S.A. 

c c 2 



388 DOMESDAY COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE {Cont.) 



90U0aUs of 

DELEGATE 

A. Staveley Hill, Q.C, D.CL. . 
John Westlake, Q.C. . 

J. B. Sheppard, L.L.D. . 

F. J. Baioent 

C. C. A. GOSCH, Royal Danish Legation 
P. Edward Dove .... 
JosiAH Pierce 



The Minister of the United 

States 

George W. Marshall, LL.D.,F.S. A. 
Augustus T. Perkins, M.A. . 
Rev. Samuel M. Hamill, D.D. 
Stephen Wickes, M.D. . 
Geo. Stewart, Jr., D.C.L., F.R.G.S. 

Charles Trice Martin, B.A.,F.S.A. 
Stuart Archibald Moore, F.S.A. 
Joseph Clarke, F.S.A. . 

The Lord Arthur Russell . 
Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart 
J. Bain, F.S.A. Scot . 
C. H. E. Carmichael, M.A. 
Walter de Gray Birch, F.S.A. 
E. Loftus Brock, F.S.A. . . 
S. Wayland Kershaw, F.S.A. 

Robert Giffen, LL.D. . 

Sir Rawson W. Rawson, K.C.M.G. 

Charles J. Shoppee, F.R.I.B.A. 

John W. Standerwick . 

Rev. W. H. Milman, M.A., F.R 

Hist. S 

George Hurst, J.P., F.R. Hist S. 



appointed by 

Masters of the Bench of the 
Inner Temple. 

Masters of the Bench of Lin- 
coln's Inn. 

Dean and Chapter of Canter- 
bury. 

Dean and Chapter of Win- 
chester. 

Royal Society of Northern An- 
tiquaries, Copenhagen. 

Historical Society of Austral- 
asia. 

Maine Historical Society, Port- 
land, Maine. 

Maryland Historical Society. 

Historic Genealogical Society of 
New England, Boston, Mass. 

New Jersey Historical Society. 

Literary and Historical Society 
of Quebec 

Society of Antiquaries. 
Royal Institute of British Archi- 
tects. 



I Royal Institution. 

Royal Archaeological Institute. 
Royal Society of Literature. 

I British Archaeological Society. 

St. Paul's Ecdesiological So- 
ciety. 

[ Statistical Society. 

Surveyors' Institute. 

Wyclif Society. 
1 The President and Fellows of 
) Sion College. 

Bedford General Library Com- 
pany. 



DOMESDAY COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE {Cont) 3S9 



delegates of $OddiCS {C<mtinued). 



DELEGATE 

Rev. E. J. Barry, M.A. . 
Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B. . 

John Parker, F.S.A. . . 

Rev. G. Browne, B.D. . 

O. C. Pell 

Rev. Professor W. W. Skeat, M.A. 
R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A. 



Sir J. B. Phear .... 
G. Alan Lowndes 
J. Horace Round, M.A. . 
Professor Veitch, M.A. LL.D. 
J. Dalrymple Duncan, F.S.A. Scot. 
W. G. Black, F.S.A. Scot. 
Thos. W. Shore 
Arthur W. Moore, M.A. 

H. G. Keene, CLE. . 

H. Marrett Godfrey 

Geo. Esdaile .... 



W. Kelly, F.S.A., F.R.HisLS. . 
The Lord Bishop of Nottingham 
James Rutland 
T. Hodgkin, LL.D. . 



The Dean of Norwich . 

Rev. C. R. Manning, M.A., F.S.A. 

Christopher A. Markham 



R. B. Turton .... 
James Parker, M.A 
Professor Westwood, M.A., F.L.S. 
Rev. J. Griffith, LL.D. . 
J. H. Phillips .... 

J. W. WOODALL, F.G.S. . 



appointed by 
Beverley Antiquarian Society. 
Bristol and Gloucestershire 

Archseological Society. 
Buckinghamshire Archaeologi- 
cal Society. 

I Cambridge Antiquarian Society. 

Cambridge Philological Society. 

Cumberland and Westmoreland 
Antiquarian and Archaeologi- 
cal Society. 

Devonshire Association. 

I Essex Archaeological Society. 



\ Glasgow Archaeological Society. 

Hampshire Field Club. 
Isle of Man Antiquarian 
Society. 

I Socidtd Jersiaise, Jersey. 

Lancashire and Cheshire Anti- 

quarian Society. 
Leicester Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society. 
Lincoln Diocesan Architectural 

Society. 
Maidenhead and Thames Valley 

Antiquarian Society. 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Society of 
Antiquaries. 
\ Norfolk and Norwich Archaeo- 
) logical Society. 
Architectural Society for the 
Archdeaconries of North- 
ampton and Oakham. 
North Riding Record Society. 
I Oxford Architectural and His- 
) torical Society. 

St. Alban's Archseological Soc. 
I Scarborough Archaeological So- 
) ciety. 



390 DOMESDAY COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE (Cant,) 



Pcl00aiM( of Roddies {Continued). 



DELEGATE 

Stanley Leighton, M.P. . 

Rev. J. A. Bennett, M.A., F.S.A. 

Rev. Wm. Hunt . 

The Lord John Hervey 

Rev. C. H. Evelyn-White, F.R. 

Hist S 

Rev. Prebendary Campion 
The Dean of Lichfield 
Rev. Ernald Lane . 
T J. Mazzinghi, M.A., F.S.A. 
W. Paley Baildon . 



APPOINTED BY 

Shropshire Archaeological Soc 
Somersetshire Archaeological 
Society. 

Suffolk Institute of Archaeology. 

Sussex Archaeological Society. 

William Salt Archaeological So- 
ciety, Stafford. 

Yorkshire Archaeological Assoc 



W. Herbage, F.S.S.,Trea8.R.Hist.S., London and South- Western Bank, 
7 Fenchurch Street, E.C. 



<j^onorarfi $ecrefarfi. 

P. Edward Dove, F.R.A.S., 23 Old Buildings, Lincoki's Inn, 
London, W.C. 



AN OUTLINE OF THE OBJECTS 

OF THB 

ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



The 'Historical Society' was established in 1868, and was 
authorised in 1872, by the permission of Her Most Gracious Majesty 
the Queen, to use the title — 

'Royal Historical Society.' 

The principal objects of the Society are : — 

L To promote and foster the study of History on general scientific 
principles. 

n. To encourage researches on important sfedal historical facts 
concerning Great Britain and other countries. 

HI. To assist in the publication of rare and valuable State 
papers, or any other documents throwing light on the customs, 
manners, and mode of life of different nations. 

IV. To publish translations of standard historical works. 

V. To hold monthly meetings, for the reading and discussion of 
papers on historical subjects. 

VI. To publish a selection of the papers read. 

VII. To grant from time to time prizes for Historical Essays. 



The Monthly Meetings are held in the Society's Rooms, 
1 1 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, W., at 8.30 o'clock p.m., on 
the third Thursday of each month, from November to June in- 
clusive. 

A branch of the Society has been established at Cambridge, 
under the presidency of Professor J. R. Seeley, V.P.R.Hist.S. 
Several Meetings are held during the Session. 

The Subscription to the Society is Two Guineas per annum, and 
is payable to the Treasurer on the first day of the Session, viz. ist of 
November. There is at present no Entrance Fee. 

Nomination Forms and any further information will be furnished 
on application to the Secretary, 

P. EDWARD DOVE, 

II Chandos Street, 

Cavendish Square, W. 



ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



OFFICERS AND COUNCIL— JANUARY 1888. 

THE LORD ABERDARE, G.CB., F.R.S. 

Sir John Lubbock, Bart, M.P., 

D.CL. 
Professor Max Muller, 

LL.D. 
Professor J. R. Seeley, M.A. 

LL.D. 



The Lord Acton. 

Hyde Clarke. 

C. A. Fyffe, M.A, Vice-Ckair- 

man. 
James Heywood, F.R.S. 
W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. 



Sounctt. 



Oscar Browning, M.A., Chair- 

man. 
Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. 
Rev. J. Franck Bright, D.D. 
Professor M. Creighton, M.A, 

LL.D. 
Rev. W. Cunningham, B.D. 
J. Baker Greene, M.B., LL.B. 
Hubert Hall, F.S.A. 
Henry H. Howorth, F.S.A. 



George Hurst, J.P. 

Colonel E. Cecil Johnson, 

M.A.L 
H. E. Malden, M.A. 
Colonel G. B. Malleson, 

C.S.L 
Tito Pagliardini. 

F. K. J. Shenton. 

Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D. 

G. G. Zerffi, Ph.D., F.R.S.L. 



William Herbage, F.S.S., London and South-Western Bank, 
7 Fcnchurch Street, London, E.C. 

<jlibrariati. 

W. E. Poole, i i Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, W. 

$ccrctarff. 

P. Edward Dove, F.R.AS., 23 Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 



Cambridge ^roncl^— Sommiffcc. 

Professor J. R. Seeley, M.A. (Caius), Chairman, 
Oscar Browning, M.A (King's), Vice-Chairman. 
Rev. W. Cunningham, B.D. (Trinity). 
A. R. Ropes, M.A. (King's), Honorary Secretary, 



Selden society. 

Founded 1887, 

To ENCOURAGE THE StUDY AND ADVANCE THE KNOWLEDGE OF 

THE History of English Law. 



OUTLINE OF OBJECTS. 

L The printing of MSS. and of new editions and translations 
of works having an important bearing on English Legal 
History ; 
n. The collection of materials for Dictionaries of Anglo-French 

and of Law Terms ; 
in. The collection of materials for a history of English Law ; 

IV. The holding of meetings for the reading and discussion of 

papers; 

V. The publication of a selection of the pap)ers read at the meet* 

ings and of other original communications. 

The first publication of the Society is now in the press. It will 
be a volume of Thirteenth Century Pleas of the Crown from the 
Eyre Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, edited with a 
translation by Mr. F. W. Maitland, University Reader in English 
Law, Cambridge. Many of these criminal cases are very interesting 
and they throw more light than cases of almost any other class on 
the manners and customs of the people. They are not, however, on 
that account the less valuable from the point of view of the legal 
historian. The criminal cases in the Year Books are not many, and 
yet they have to fill the long interval between Bracton and Staund- 
ford. Many points are still obscure, and none more so than the 
history of the petty jury. By the publication of these records we 
ought to be able to trace the precise process by which the twelve 
hundredors and four townsmen of Bracton became the two juries of 
a later time. 

The volume which is now being prepared will begin with the 
year 1200, the point at which the Rotidi Curia I^egis^ published by 
Sir Francis Palgrave for the Record Commissioners, come to an end, 
and will contain many cases from the reign of John, as it seems 
desirable that the working of the ordeals of fire and water should be 
illustrated as fully as is possible. It will also contain many cases 
from the first part of Henry III/s reign, which may serve to show 



J 



394 SELDEN SOCIETY 

how a substitute for the ordeals was gradually found in trial by jury. 
Though for the most part the cases will be cases of felony, still many 
of the grievances redressed by the Great Charter will be illustrated, 
and care has been taken to collect whatever throws new light on the 
procedure of the ancient local Courts, the system of frank pledge, 
the representation of counties and boroughs for judicial purposes, the 
condition of the towns, their corporate privileges, and the like. This 
volume will be issued to Subscribers as soon as possible in respect of 
the subscription for 1887. There will be a full subject index and 
complete indexes of the names of all persons and places, thereby ren- 
dering the volume of great value to local historians and genealogists 
as well as to lawyers. If the number of Subscribers is sufficiently 
large, more than one volume will be issued. 

It is also proposed, as soon as possible, to print a series of records 
of real actions and of cases illustrating villein status and villein 
tenure ; but how soon these can be undertaken depends entirely on 
the number of Subscribers. 

The publications to be issued in respect of the subscription for 
1888 are under the consideration of the Executive Committee and 
will be announced as soon as possible. 

An account of the principal classes of MSS. with which the 
Society proposes to deal may be had from the Honorary Secretary 
by members of the Society gratis, or by non-members at the price of 
one shilling. Mr. Bernard Quaritch, 15 Piccadilly, W., has been 
appointed agent for the sale to non-members of the Society's publica- 
tions. 

The Annual Subscription to the Society is One Guinea, due on 
the I St of January for the year then commencing. Members have 
no further liability of any kind. Each Subscriber will receive a copy 
of all the publications for the year. A composition of Twenty 
Guineas is accepted in lieu of all Annual Subscriptions, constituting 
Life Membership from the date of composition, and in the case of 
Libraries, Societies, and Corporate Bodies, membership for 30 years. 
Subscriptions should be paid : 

In America, to Professor J. B. Thayer, Cambridge, Mass., 
Honorary Secretary for America, who has kindly undertaken 
to receive all American Subscriptions ; 
In England, to the Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, 

P. EDWARD DOVE. 

23 Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn. 
January 1888. 



SELDEN SOCIETY 395 



RULES- 



1. This Society shall be called the Selden Society. 

2. The object of the Society shall be to encourage the study and 
advance the knowledge of the History of English Law. 

3. The Society shall have a Council consisting of a President, a 
Vice-President, an Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, and not more 
than one hundred Members. The Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief 
Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, the President of the Probate 
Divorce and Admiralty Division, the Chief Justice of the -United States, 
the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the Treasurers of the four 
Inns of Court, and the President of the Incorporated Law Society of the 
United Kingdom shall, when willing, he ex-ojiao members of the Council. 
Twenty members of the Council, of whom three besides the Secretary 
shall be a quorum, shall form an Executive Committee with full power 
to conduct the business of the Society. 

4. The ten members of the Council and the four members of the 
Executive Committee senior on the roll shall retire annually, but shall be 
eligible for re-election. 

5. Membership of the Society shall be constituted by payment ot 
the annual subscription or of the life composition. 

6. The annual subscription shall be One Guinea, due on the ist of 
January for the year then commencing. A composition of Twenty 
Guineas shall constitute life membership from the date of the composi- 
tion, and in the case of libraries, societies, and corporate bodies, mem- 
bership for thirty years. 

7. The Anniversary Meeting ot the Society shall be held on the 
16th of December the birthday of John Selden, or on such other day bs 
the Executive Committee may from time to time appoint. 

8. No Member shall receive the Society's publications until his 
subscription for the year has been paid. 

9. An account of the receipts and expenses of the Society, audited 
by two honorary auditors appointed by the Executive Committee, shall 
be made up to the ist of November in each year, and published m the 
next volume issued by the Society. 

10. At the Anniversary Meeting the vacancies in the Council and 
in the Executive Committee shall be filled up. 

11. These Rules shall not be altered except upon motion at the 
Anniversary Meeting. Notice ot any such motion shall be given to the 
Honorary Secretary not less than one month, and by the Honorary 
Secretary to the Members not less than fourteen ^days, before the Meeting. 



J 



396 SELDEN SOCIETY 



HONORARY SECRETARIES, 

AMERICA, 
general $eardarfi. 

Professor J. B. Thayer, Cambridge, Mass. 

4ocaI Secretaries. 
MARYIiAKD : 

Baltimore, 

MA88 AOHXTBBrrTS : 

Worcester, 

RocKWOOD Hoar, 9 P.O. Block. 
MINKB80TA: 

8t. Paxil, 

Henry B. Wenzell, National German American 

Bank Building. 
MI880URI: 

8t. liOuis, 

P. T. Bryan, 506 Olive Street 
NEW YORK: 

New York Oily, 

Alexander Tison, 7 Fifth Avenue. 
OHIO: 

Cincinnati, 

Joseph D. Brannan, 30 W. 4th Street. 
Cleveland, 

Wm. E. Cushing, Mercantile Bank Building. 
PBNNS Yli VANIA : 

Philadelphia, 

Abram H. Winterstein, 402 Walnut Street. 
Pittsburgh, 

Johns McCleave, 82 Bakewell Building. 
RHODE I8IiAND: 

Providence, 

Amasa M. Eaton. 

QUEENSI^A^: 'AUSTRALIA. 

Brisbane, 

C. MacCarthv Collins. 

S^onotarxii $ecretarff anh treasurer. 

P. Edward Dove, 23 Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C. 



SELDEN SOCIETY 397 



OFFICERS AND COUNCIL. 

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. 

^rcsibent. 

t The Lord Chief Justice of England. 

t The Lord Justice Fry 

0ottncil. 

H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. 
•The Lord Chancellor. 
•The Lord Chief Justice of England. 
•The Master of the Rolls. 
•The President of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty 

Division. 
•The Chief Justice of the United States. 
•The Attorney-General. 
•The Solicitor-General. 
•The Treasurer of the Middle Temple. 
•The Treasurer of the Inner Temple. 
•The Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. 
•The Treasurer of Gray's Inn. 
•The President of the Incorporated Law Society, U.K. 



tTHE Minister of the United States. 

The Marquis of Salisbury, K.G. 

The Earl of Derby, K.G. 

The Bishop of Chester. 

The Lord Aberdare, G.C.B., President of the Royal Histoiical 
Society. 

The Lord Herschell. 

The Lord Thring. 

The Lord Justice Cotton. 
tTHE Lord Justice Lindley. 
tTHE Lord Justice Bowen. 

Mr. Justice Cave. 

Mr. Justice Chitty. 

Mr Justice Day. 

Mr. Justice Grantham. 

* Ex officio, when willing. t Executive Committee. 



39« SELDEN SOCIETY— COUNCIL {Continued) 

Mr. Justice Kekewich. 

Mr. Baron Pollock. 
tMR. Justice Stirling. 
tMR. Justice Wills. 

The Hon. Horace Gray, Justice of the United States Supreme 
Court. 

The Hon. O. W. Holmes, Jun., Justice of the Supreme Court, 
Massachusetts. 

The Hon. Russell S. Taft, Supreme Court, Vermont 

Professor James Barr Ames, Harvard. 

Sir W. R. Anson, Warden of All Souls' College, Oxford. 

J. Anstie, Q.C. 

Melville M. Bigelow, Boston, Massachusetts. 
tS. R. ScARGiLL Bird, F.S.A-, Public Record OflSce. 

George Tucker Bispham, Dean of the Law School, University of 
Pennsylvania. 

G. H. Blakesley, Lincoln's Inn. 

J. B. Braithwaite, Lincoln's Inn. 

T. T. Bucknill, Q.C. 
tR. Campbell, Lincoln's Inn. 

S. J. Chadwick, President of the Dewsbury Law Society. 

Professor H. W. Chandler, Oxford. 
tHYDE Clarke, V.P.R.Hist.S. 

Alfred Cock, Q.C. 

Arthur Cohen, Q.C, M.P. 

tMONTAGUE COOKSON, Q.C. 

The Right Hon. Sir R. Couch. 

Brinton Coxe, Philadelphia. 

Rev. W. Cunningham, B.D., F.R.Hist.S., University Lecturer on 
History, Cambridge. 

John Cutler, Professor of Law, King's College, London. 

W. T. S. Daniel, Q.C. 

Sir Horace Davey, Q.C. 

Professor A. V. Dicey, Oxford. 
tP. Edward Dove. 

His Honour Judge Eddis, Q.C. 
tHowARD W. Elphinstone, Lincoln's Inn. 
tJOHN Evans, T.R.S., President of the Society of Antiquaries. 

R. I. Finnemore, J.P., F.R.HistS., Resident Magistrate, Natal. 

C. A. Fyffe, V.P.R-HistS., Inner Temple. 

J. S. Stuart Glennie, Middle Temple. 

Professor John Chipman Gray, Harvard. 

Hubert Hall, F.R.HistS., Public Record Office. 

W. J. Hardy, F.S.A. 

Professor J. I. Clarke Hare, Philadelphia. 

t Executive Committee. 



SELDEN SOCIETY— COUNCIL {Continued) 399 

Professor T. E. Holland, Oxford. 

F. H. JEUNE, Inner Temple. 

E. K. Karslake, Q.C. 
Professor W. A. Keener, Harvard. 

Courtney S. Kenny, M.P., Downing College, Cambridge: 

Professor C. C. Langdell, Harvard. 

W. A. Lindsay, Middle Temple, Portcullis Pw^uivant of Arms. 

His Honour Judge Vernon Lushington, Q.C. 
tH. C. Maxwell Lyte, F.S.A., Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. 
tJOHN Macdonell, Editor of the State Trials Reports. 
tF. W. Maitland, University Reader in English Law, Cambridge. 
tC. Trice Martin, F.S.A, Public Record Office. 
tH. S. Milman, F.S.A, Director of the Society of Antiquaries. 
tSTUART Moore, F.S.A, Inner Temple. 

The Right Hon. G. Osborne Morgan, Q.C, M.P. 

J. Fletcher Moulton, Q.C. 
tFRANCiS K. Munton, Solicitor. 

Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. 
tPROFESSOR F. Pollock, Lincohi's Inn. 

G. W. Prothero, F.R.Hist.S., King's College, Cambridge. 
William Henry Rawle, Philadelphia. 

The Hon. Henry Reed, Philadelphia. 
J. Horace Round. 

F. E. Sawyer, F.S.A., Solicitor. 

Professor T. E. Scrutton, University College, London. 

Wm. a Shortt, New York. 

Professor W. W. Skeat, Cambridge. 
tHUGH Stirling, Solicitor. 

Whitley Stokes, C.S.I., Inner Temple. 

Rev. Canon Isaac Taylor. 

Professor J. B. Thayer, Harvard. 

John Westlake, Q.C. 
tF. Meadows White, Q.C. 

Sir W. a. White, G.C.M.G., F.R.Hist.S., H.B.M. Ambassador at 
Constantinople. 

J. C. Wilson, Exeter College, Oxford. 

Sidney Woolf, Middle Temple. 

SsonoxaxTH $ecreiars for Jlmcrica. 

Professor J. B. Thayer, Cambridge, Mass. 

Ssonoxaxji |iecreiar& axtb treasurer. 

tP. Edward Dove, 23 Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C 

f Executive Committee. 




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